SIMON EASTERBY might not have seen France’s steamrolling of his side coming.
But he has an idea of what might be in store this weekend.
Ireland’s 42-27 defeat to Les Bleus on Saturday has left Fabien Galthie’s team in the driving seat for the Six Nations title ahead of the last round of games.
Easterby must rally his troops to beat Italy and then sit back and wait for an unlikely favour from Scotland in Paris.
There are echoes of 18 years ago when Easterby was a player and the Championship finished with the same set of fixtures.
Ireland’s 51-24 win meant France’s margin of victory had to be at least 22 points.
It was — just — after Scotland had a score chalked off and Elvis Vermeulen’s last-gasp try was awarded by Irish TMO Simon McDowell.
Easterby sighed: “Yeah, 2007 went to Rome, I remember. We put a few points on Italy and then Scotland went to Paris and they had a late try disallowed.
“It is out of our hands. That’s the disappointing thing.
“We started really well — we just didn’t quite convert enough of the opportunities — and at half-time we felt like we were in the ascendancy.
“We felt like we had kind of broken the back of them a little bit, even though the scoreline wasn’t in our favour.
“We go out in the second half, we score a great maul try.
“We seem to lose it back down the back of number of different things.
“It’s devastating that we’ve not been able to produce a better performance, not in all the game, just in dealing with chunks of the game which allowed them to get the momentum and get the result.”
That is an understatement as the visitors scored 34 unanswered points before Ireland restored a small bit of pride with two late tries from Cian Healy and Jack Conan.
It was a first home defeat in the Six Nations in four years.
Easterby said: “You’ll always reflect on moments in the game which gave them that momentum.
“Maybe in certain times in the game we were on the attack and we got turned over or we weren’t quite accurate enough.
“And then we also need to be better at stopping and saying it’s about taking advantage of those moments.
“It didn’t help that we were down to 14 men.
“I think they kind of kicked on a little bit in that period when Calvin Nash was off and I’ll go on record in saying I don’t, and still don’t, believe it was necessarily a yellow card.
“He was very passive in it and it was just one of those things.
“But we have to be better when we’re down to 14 men. S*** happens.
“You might go down one man, you might go down two men, but we can’t let that be the reason why we concede those points.
“We need to make sure we’re better at that.
“I don’t think you ever go through your career without having a few lows and disappointments and I know that the players will bounce back.
“They’ll be disappointed but they will want to finish strong. We still feel, genuinely feel, like there’s more in us.
“And this group, to a man, are brilliant at just taking the positives, understanding why they didn’t quite click and get the most out of the game and will work incredibly hard together to put in a performance next week.
“But it’s the game, it’s the highest level, it’s those teams that find a way to win and we’ve done that a few times in the last three weeks or last few games.
“We didn’t manage to do that here, we came up against a good side and we’ll also be disappointed with certain elements of that performance that allowed them to get ahead of us and take the game away.”
SWAYED ON 7-1?
Easterby insisted that France’s power would not convince him that Ireland should go down the road of a 7-1 forwards/backs split on the bench.
He said: “There’s a risk-reward. But whatever you do, there’s an advantage and a disadvantage. It’s just whether you take the advantage when you’ve got it or not.
“But it’s genetics as well, we don’t produce guys like Emmanuel Meafou and these lads, so do we need to be a clever team and out-think these teams because we can’t out-muscle them.
“I guess part of winning collisions isn’t just about the size of people, it’s about understanding how guys around the ball player can affect that as well.”
And he believes that Ireland’s retiring trio of Healy, Peter O’Mahony and Conor Murray will have a role to play this Saturday, even if there is a strong argument that — given the unlikeliness of a Championship win — it would be better to give more inexperienced players an opportunity.
Easterby said: “They’ll be very important, as will a lot of the guys.
“There’s no doubt that they’ll want to make sure that they impart their experience on moments like this.
“Those three will be a part of that, I’m sure. They’ve been through highs and lows themselves.
“They’ll be missed but every team has to keep moving forward and look for fresh blood, and we’ve started to do that as well in the positions that those guys are in.”
