The French rugby team may have lost to Ireland but their press pack won the battle of the mixed zone.
Armed with A4 pads, camera phones, video recorders and clunky, 1960s-looking sound capturing devices, the French media troupe descended on their beaten compatriots and asked various versions of “Pourquoi?”
When the Irish players arrived – Conor Murray, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, Iain Henderson and Devin Toner – they were forced to find any crevice or corner of the room in which to share their thoughts.
We got to chat to Henderson first and heard about the half-time talk that re-focused Ireland before they closed out a 19-9 win.
Asked if his side were building momentum ahead of England’s visit to Dublin on March 18, Henderson was giving nothing away. He replied, “Is that what you’re saying?”
“This cliché is thrown out time and time again about how we’re next-game focused. After Scotland, it was, ‘We have to go and win the rest of our games, or we don’t win the Championship’. But we won’t win the rest of the games by preparing for England.”
It was easy to understand where Henderson was coming from but don’t think for a second that Ireland are not plotting England’s downfall. Devin Toner confirmed as much when he stooped down to chat with us.
After warning Wales would ‘come out all guns blazing’, Toner gave us an insight into the Irish mind-set these past few weeks. He declared:
“It’s good for us to get that quarter-final out of the way. We’ve got the semi-final now and we’re raring to go.”
A semi-final in Cardiff and, if that goes well, all to play for in a final against Eddie Jones’ England.
It’s shaping up nicely.
