Irish on the brink after Clerc lands killer blows

Faced with the unimaginable humiliation of being kicked out of their own six-week party after only a fortnight, the Six Nations champions relied on Frederic Michalak to break almost an hour's often heroic Irish resistance with a sublime kick so perfect in its execution that Vincent Clerc touched it down without needing to check his Olympian stride.

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Sliding scale: Clerc goes over unopposed for France's first try

The Toulouse wing, whose lastminute try at Croke Park seven months earlier had sabotaged an Irish Grand Slam, struck again four minutes later, twisting over from another Michalak chip.

The double act left Ireland with no way back and their leading forward, Paul O'Connell, watching glumly from the sin-bin.

Captain Brian O'Driscoll said: "We knew we would need a class performance from one to 15 and that didn't quite happen.

"There wasn't enough of the performance we'd been talking about. When we had the ball we didn't do enough with it. The scoreline doesn't lie."

Coach Eddie O'Sullivan said: "I don't think they were 20 points better than us. I think it was eight penalties against us at half-time, we usually keep the penalty count below eight for 80 minutes.

"I think we played a lot better tonight. That's a very good French team."

Sea-bass: Chabal goes on a bulldozing run towards Horgan

At least the Irish know exactly what they have to do — beat Argentina at the Parc des Princes tomorrow week or catch a depressingly early flight home before the quarter-finals.

O'Driscoll added: "We have got to go out to win it and play a lot better than that. It's a big ask but stranger things have happened.

"You don't ever lose faith in what you're capable of, but so far we haven't produced that."

After making such heavy weather of Namibia and Georgia that at times they might have passed for England in green jerseys, the Irish rode into the eye of a Parisian storm hoping France would again find the burden of expectation too much to bear and dissolve as they had done at the grand opening a fortnight earlier against the Pumas.

The attendance of the Irish Prime Minister Bertie Aherne, a discreet distance from the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, almost turned the duel into a state occasion.

Despite the fitful fury of their start and the fleeting glimpse of an early try when O'Gara's garryowen caused pandemonium in the French ranks, Jean-Baptiste Elissalde struck a hat-trick of soothing early penalties, all three delivered from within the Irish 22 over a period of 16 minutes.

All of a sudden, a match which head coach Eddie O'Sullivan had viewed as less than "mission impossible" was beginning to assume that sort of proportion.

It would have been considerably worse but for some frantic last-ditch heroics from Shane Horgan, just enough to drag Clement Poitrenaud into touch before the acrobatic Toulouse full back thrust out a telescopic right arm to dot down in the corner.

No sooner had English referee Chris White called for technological assistance in disallowing the try than Michalak had the French backs fizzing in all directions and the Irish again at breaking point.

They survived at the cost of Elissalde's third penalty, a small price to pay for hanging on and dredging all their vast experience to pull them through.

That experience amounted to a stack of caps almost as high as the Eiffel Tower, a total of more than 700 out on the pitch and almost another 200 parked up in the stands belonging to Peter Stringer, Denis Hickie and Geordan Murphy, all surplus to requirements.

O'Gara, having missed an earlier penalty from the French 10-metre line, ensured the Irish had something to show in the shape of a drop goal before a misunderstanding between the fly half and Horgan allowed France to unleash Sebastien Chabal, in all his terrifying glory, from a close-range line-out.

A swarm of green jerseys engulfed him before surviving a battering in front of their own posts, again at the inevitable cost of the pot-shot penalty from which Elissalde restored the nine-point lead at the break.

The omens had not been good for Ireland — one win in the French capital for 35 years and none since Brian O'Driscoll's hattrick of tries seven years ago.

But the longer they kept in touch, the more the likelihood of France wobbling. Simon Easterby's break deep into the opposition 22 roused the vast army of Irish fans only for Elissalde to respond by increasing the French lead.

Easterby, the Yorkshireman who lives in Wales and qualifies for Ireland through his mother's nationality, conceded more than three times the amount of ground he made by flattening Michalak with a late tackle.

When Ireland pulled down the consequent line-out maul, Elissalde duly nailed his fifth goal.

The magic which had been missing from France came out of the blue like a flash of lightning.

Michalak's wonderful kick from the outside of his right foot curved so perfectly into the path of Clerc that the hurtling Toulouse wing gathered it in-goal on the second bounce.

Ireland, for all their heroics, had been undone in that one moment of genius. France were off the hook and back on track.

Elissalde could afford to send a sixth penalty smacking against an upright and miss both conversions of Clerc's tries.

Now, ironically, Raphael Ibanez's team need Ireland to beat Argentina next weekend if the hosts are to gain a home quarter-final against Scotland or Italy instead of traipsing to Cardiff for one against New Zealand.