KEY POINTS:
PARIS - Ireland's indiscipline dug a hole so deep that the Irish fell into it and could not get out was coach Eddie O'Sullivan's analogy as to how they came to lose 25-3 to hosts France in their World Cup Group D clash at the Stade de France here today.
The Irish handler admitted to being bitterly disappointed at the defeat which saved France from a humiliating first round exit and pushed the Irish to the brink of exiting themselves.
Their only chance is if they beat Argentina and secure a bonus point on Sunday week they can still go through on the head to head rule should they finish level on points.
However, O'Sullivan admitted that another ill-disciplined showing like against France and their World Cup dream would be over.
"We were well beaten," said a gracious O'Sullivan.
"They (the French) deserved it.
"Our discipline let us down - we gave away eight penalties in the first-half which is well above our average for a full match - and we had problems with the referee (Chris White).
"We were being done off the park in the first-half and the French built on their lead thanks to our ill-discipline.
"We dug a hole for ourselves and we fell into it."
Despite O'Sullivan's turn of phrase over White, he later refused to blame the Englishman for the Irish disciplinary woes.
"To be honest Chris White is a good referee, so if he penalised us we must have being doing something wrong.
"Chris is very experienced and we have to cop it (the blame).
"It's tough because we pride ourselves on our discipline but maybe we were too fired up and aggressive for a match we had totally focussed on all week.
"We just didn't adjust," added O'Sullivan, who signed a new four year contract just prior to the tournament raising many eyebrows as to the judiciousness of the IRFU.
O'Sullivan admitted that another factor in the defeat had been the poor performance in the lineout where British and Irish Lions locks Paul O'Connell and Donncha O'Callaghan were bested for most of the game by their French counterparts.
O'Connell's frustrations boiled over and he was sin-binned for 10 minutes just after the hour mark .
"We did win some ball but it was delivered back so poorly that the backs couldn't get on the front foot," said O'Sullivan.
Skipper Brian O'Driscoll admitted it had been highly frustrating, in another performance where he and highly-rated centre partner Gordon D'Arcy failed to fire or get any breaks.
He refuted, however, that the claims in the French media during the week about first-five Ronan O'Gara had had a detrimental effect.
"The penalty on half-time cost us dear as it meant we went in 12-3 down and not 9-3," said the 28-year-old, whose greatest moment came here in 2000 when he scored a hat-trick of tries in a famous win over the French.
"As for the allegations, well if anything it served to add more fuel to the fire, if there needed to be any."
O'Driscoll also refused to blame relatively inexperienced scrum-half Eoin Reddan - who was controversially brought in at the expense of 79-cap veteran Peter Stringer - for the lack of quality ball.
"Eoin likes getting the scrum going forward, but they weren't doing that, so no I would not point the finger of blame at him," said O'Driscoll.
O'Sullivan showed his frustration only at one point when asked whether he thought the Irish could help the French finish top of the group by beating the Pumas in Paris and scoring four tries in the process.
"I think we did enough for France tonight to do them any more," he said.
"I am not going to lose any sleep over France, my priority is us beating the Argentinians."
- AFP
