Six Nations championships aren’t won on the opening weekends, but they can effectively be lost, and never before has a curtain raiser felt as pivotal as Friday night’s collision between the Grand Slam winners of the last two years. The winners were destined to swiftly become odds-on favourites to lift the title while the fallout from the World Cup exit would be compounded for the losers.
And so it came to pass, spectacularly so.
With Italy to come at the Aviva Stadium next Sunday, Ireland are now 1-3 favourites to win successive championships for just the third time in history, emulating the 1948/49 and 2014/15 sides. By dint of filleting the French 38-17 in their Stade Vélodrome citadel in a manner not seen since the Richie McCaw/Dan Carter vintage All Blacks team did in 2009, as well as profoundly deepening France’s World Cup scars, Ireland are now even odds-on favourites to complete back-to-back Grand Slams at 4-5.
That seems borderline ridiculous given no Irish side has ever achieved the feat, nor has any other country since it became the Six Nations at the turn of the millennium; France being the last to do so in 1997 and 1998, prior to which only England (three times) and Wales (once) had ever done so.
Andy Farrell knows that will already be the expectation now among Irish rugby supporters, but while not specifically mentioning it, nor was he dismissing the idea either.
“We want to be in it at the last week but internally we’re hungry to be as good as we possibly can be. In reality, it’s nice to get the victory and it being a nine-day turnaround now and bank holiday back home it means that the bank holiday can be a little sweeter for us.
“We meet back up on Monday night and get a few down days because we’ve been away for 12 days, away from the families. That will be good for us but in reality, it’s one win. It’s one win out of one and we’ve got to be on to the next one.”
By the same token, having experienced the ripple effects of both defeats and wins on the opening weekend, Farrell realises the team has some serious wind in their sails now.
“It’s not won or lost but it’s about building on this. We tend to be pretty harsh on our performances that we’ve won, because we’re able to do that and make some good points. So hopefully we’re able to get better because of that.
“But the feelgood factor of a victory like that, it is one from one and it is just one from one, but at the same time it’s a special victory, it definitely is, and it’s there to be celebrated, that’s for sure.”
In giving England an almighty fright in Rome before losing 27-24 last Saturday, Italy showed they will be no mugs under new coach Gonzalo Quesada, but this Irish team are in rude health aside from “a few bangs and bruises”. Not so a French side also resigned to being without Reda Wardi (wrist) and now Paul Willemse pending his suspension, as well as the other sidelined trio of locks Romain Taofifenua, Thibaud Flament and Emmanuel Meafou.
“We’ll see how Garry Ringrose is when we get back home but, no, we’re pretty good,” said Farrell.
In addition to the nine-day turnaround for the Italian game, Ireland then have a 13-day break before facing Wales at home, and accordingly the Irish head coach was unsure as to whether they’ll be of a mind to change up the matchday 23 this week.
“Yes and no. Whatever’s right for the team. There’s always the balance about opportunity but also doing what’s right for the team and the cohesion of the team going forward. It’s a bit of an awkward one, isn’t it? We’ve only had one game together so we’ll see how we shape up on Monday.”
For Ireland, more than anybody it seems, the page has been turned on the World Cup. And the key to doing that was actually them doing that quicker than the rest of us following their review of last Monday week.
“There’s no hangovers with us,” maintained Farrell. “There is a realisation of where we’re at and where we need to go to next, and what we need to learn, and that’s it. Hangovers are for tomorrow. We’re three months down the line, you know? That’s a big hangover if you can’t get over it in that time.
“We talk about our past performances all the time, sometimes we go back three years to say ‘we learned this’ or whatever. So of course we learned big things from the All Blacks defeat but it’s not a hangover, it’s just the next step in how we progress going forward as a team and that’s how it should be, in my opinion.”
Simple, straightforward logic, and distilling things with that clarity of thinking and emotional intelligence of his, as Farrell invariably does.
