Brendan Gallagher: It feels like a minor classic is waiting for us in Cardiff

No sign yet of the ‘beautiful game’ that Guy Noves had Toulouse playing in their heyday but that was a massively important win for the French at the Stade Francais yesterday. They may have beaten Italy and Ireland by a collective total of just three points but Les Blues will arrive in Cardiff a week on Friday with two wins under their belt, a spring in their steps and nothing to lose.
Now they have a short break to take stock and fine tune before seeing if they can take the next step forward at the Millennium Stadium, the scene of their painful World Cup humiliation against New Zealand barely four months ago. France will be underdogs but they won’t lack for motivation – and momentum is building a little.
It wasn’t remotely pretty in Paris yesterday where conditions didn’t help and Ireland played with the spirit and desperation of a side who could already see the defence of their title slipping away after just two games.
The French pack were in ultra-physical mode and there were one or two challenges that might yet interest the citing officer, but for a while Ireland’s innate ability to ride the blows and the boot of Johnny Sexton kept them afloat despite key players regularly limping to the touchline.
Serious injuries to Dave Kearney and Sean O’Brien and the temporary departure of Mike McCarthy disrupted them and yet again the Irish casualty list mounted up against France, as it did in their World Cup pool game last autumn.
After the break the French pack took control in a much more disciplined manner and although it took a while they eventually battered Ireland into submission.
The key moment for me came when France were 9-3 down but beginning to tighten the screw. Referee Jaco Peyper blew for a very kickable penalty but skipper Guilhem Guirado pointed straight for the corner. It was time for French rugby to flex its muscles.
From that lineout came the pressure which eventually saw France camped under the Ireland posts with that controversial series of scrums. How France were not awarded a penalty try is beyond me but at least justice was eventually done when Maxime Medard picked his angle nicely to bust through for the only try of the game.
Thereafter they closed the game down very professionally until that final minute when, with the game essentially over, they declined a shot at goal, presumably on the precept that a missed kick would give Ireland one final chance of victory.
As the Irish hadn’t looked like scoring a try all afternoon the likelihood of them running one in from under their posts was so remote as to be negligible and I wonder if those spurned three points might yet prove costly. This feels like a Six Nations that could be decided by points difference come the end of March.
When Noves reviews this game in camp at Marcoussis this week surely what he will notice first is the contribution of his bench players and whether perhaps he might need to promote one or two.
Toulouse scrum-half Sebastien Bezy is highly touted and Noves has been much involved in his development from junior days but Maxime Machenaud, on current form, is demonstrably much the more accomplished player.
Machenaud can probably sympathise with Bezy because he, too, was thrown into international rugby too soon but he has learned from that experience and bounced back in style. He and Mike Phillips might share scrum-half duties at Racing 92 but Machenaud is clearly the man to start for France, not least because he links well with Jules Plisson.
Replacement props Rabah Slimani and Eddy Ben Arous immediately put France under the pump and another replacement to catch the eye was Loann Goujon, who really began to shake things up when he came on.
Of the starters Noves must be credited in allowing Maxime Mermoz to take centre stage again. Mermoz has the all-round game to play as a second receiver and sometimes France need that to bring a little order to the chaos that sometime reigns behind the scrum.
So there are signs of revival, nothing truly spectacular, nothing conclusive but just enough to keep us interested.  I sniff a minor classic next week.