Joe McCarthy fires up the hype train to soothe Ireland’s World Cup blues

Joe McCarthy shrugs off a tackle during an eye-catching performance in Marseille. Photograph: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile/Getty Images

And people said Ireland would never win a final. The 2024 Six Nations, and indeed the 2027 World Cup, began and ended on a breezy Marseille night as Ireland helped themselves to a bonus-point victory against France, dismantled the tournament favourites, wrote the blueprint for the next chapter of the Andy Farrell era and established a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Too much? Too soon? Well, why not? Sport has always been about the dreaming as well as the doing, and for the thousands of Irish fans huddled together in a little corner of the Stade Vélodrome this was a night for shouting down the noise, for standing up in the face of hostility, for setting aside past torments. It was an examination and an exhibition, to be sure, but also a kind of exorcism. A night, in short, for pencilling in Joe McCarthy for the next two Lions squads, climbing back aboard the hype train and daring to be hurt again.

And yes, France were unspeakably poor, weirdly poor, particularly in a first half that may well go down as one of the worst of the Fabien Galthié era. They were missing an all-time great in Antoine Dupont, still weathering plenty of injuries and reduced to 14 in the first half after the brainless dismissal of Paul Willemse.

For all this, there was something vaguely thrilling in the way Ireland simply stopped them in their tracks, met violence with violence, greeted the rolling wave of noise that came their way with patience, craft and pure, unanswerable excellence.

Perhaps this was no surprise when you took the wider context into account: a Six Nations curtain-raiser that also felt like a palate-cleanser, a match taking place in the foothills of a great and gruesome pain, wrought on consecutive October nights in Paris. No grand slam can ever truly fill the void of what was taken from Ireland and France at last year’s World Cup, but there can be a certain comfort in the rebirth of a fresh cycle. Rugby is the wound, and rugby is also the bandage.

Nevertheless, they seemed to go about it in subtly different ways. Galthié had spoken in the buildup to this game about “fighting intensity”, about “Ireland forcing us into making 200 tackles, 200 rucks without possession”, the balance between flair and combat tilted towards combat. The selection of Yoram Moefana on the wing and Paul Gabrillagues in the pack suggested the France coach was prepared to back his words with actions.

And perhaps this is an entirely natural response to trauma, of having something you thought was in your grasp snatched from you. You opt for physicality partly because it is a known known, something you can control. But also partly because you’re still hurting and brute force feels like the appropriate response.

While there was a belligerence and a heft to France here, it felt unfocused and uneven, aggressive in the wrong places and passive in the wrong places, a departure from the things they have always done best. Their scrum was solid and their maul was stirring. But it’s largely immaterial if you’re just going to let Tadhg Beirne run straight through you.

Willemse’s yellow card came at just the right time for Ireland, just as they were beginning to settle into the game. The red – for a second identical offence – encapsulated France’s poor judgment all night. The television cameras captured him sitting solemnly on the bench, his head down, his shoulders hunched and withdrawn, which you could argue is what they should have been doing in the first place.

The Irish second-rows, on the other hand, were sensational all night. In the beastly two-metre McCarthy, Ireland have the sort of imposing physical specimen that they have traditionally had to import, like avocados. But here, as he disrupted and dominated, as he forged an ominous partnership with Beirne, it was possible to catch a glimpse of a sparkling future. Yes: he’ll make a cracking NFL player one day.

And in a way Ireland provided a novel answer to an age-old question of how a team recovers from sporting trauma. Do you start fresh, wipe the slate clean? Or do you keep doing the same things that brought you to the brink of glory?

You do both. You endure and evolve at the same time. You find new challenges, new frontiers to conquer.

It had been more than 50 years since Ireland beat France away from home by more than a couple of points. No Irish team had ever won at this stadium. Thirteen of this Ireland squad were in the Leinster side that so heartbreakingly crumbled in the closing minutes of the Champions Cup final against La Rochelle a couple of years ago.

So yes, even amid the familiar rattle of Six Nations triumph, Ireland are still breaking new ground, finding their outer limits. The next World Cup is almost four years away and the last is not even four months past. And yes, it’s the hope that kills you. But also, it’s hope that makes you feel alive.