France too strong for inexperienced Ireland
International Friendly
France 2-0 Ireland
France eased to a 2-0 defeat of an inexperienced Republic of Ireland in Stade de France, as Graham Burke became the first League of Ireland player in 11 years to feature in a senior international game for his country.
Olivier Giroud scrambled home a deserved opener for the hosts on 40 minutes, and four minutes later Nabil Fekir’s strike skidded off the palms of Colin Doyle and bounced home.
Derrick Williams – who started – and Shaun Williams were the other debutants in Martin O’Neill’s side, while Alan Judge made another appearance off the bench following his return to the Ireland fold in the February clash in Turkey.
The last man to pull on the green shirt from our domestic league was Joe Gamble in 2007 in the game against Ecuador.
Didier Deschamps’ Russia-bound side turned in a slick display in awful conditions.
They face Italy and the USA before they open their campaign against Australia in Kazan on June 16, and they may hope for tougher tests with Ireland offering the physicality for which Deschamps chose them – both James McClean and Harry Arter were booked for rash challenges – but little else.
Where the home side, prompted from midfield by the excellent Blaise Matuidi behind a front three of Giroud, Fekir and the mercurial Kylian Mbappe, were fluid and incisive despite the absence from the starting line-up of N’Golo Kante, Paul Pogba and Antoine Griezmann, O’Neill’s experimental team were almost permanently on the back foot.
Lining up with West Ham defender Declan Rice sitting in front of the back four, they were very nearly undone within three minutes of the kick-off when Djibril Sidibe dispossessed McClean inside his own half and fed Mbappe, whose side-footed effort curled just wide of Doyle’s far post.
McClean’s evening was not going to plan and he picked up a 21st-minute booking for a clumsy challenge on Matuidi before Fekir curled the resulting free-kick just wide from 20 yards.
Doyle was called upon for the first time when fit-again full-back Benjamin Mendy surged into space on the left and unleashed a fierce left-footed strike which the keeper parried firmly away with the home side attacking in waves.
But it was far from the last and he had to save at his near post from Mbappe before Giroud glanced a header wide, and the woodwork came to his rescue seven minutes later when Corentin Tolisso swept a first-time shot against the upright from Sidibe’s cross.
