By Griff
November 24 2015

Following the first win of the season spirits were high going to Grenoble. A BP demolition of Agen at Madejski Stadium showed that the promise of Irish's new signings and new coaching set-up might be coming together. A few hundred Irish supporters braved the snow and the recent troubles to travel to the French Alps with a renewed optimism.

As any long-term Irish supporter will tell you - it is the hope that'll get you. A look at the Top 14 table and recent results tempered any optimism. Agen are firmly lodged at the bottom of their league while FC Grenoble have a 50% record and are poised mid-table - riding high on the heroics of their recent defeats of Toulon (at home) and Castres (away) - although their last match was a hammering at Toulouse. Coupled with facing a French team in France always being a big ask I think most people were around 50/50 of the Exiles chances at Stade des Alpes.

I missed the two trips last year but I'd heard good things so wasn't missing-out a third time. Grenoble is quite a large town nestling in the Alps, when you arrive on the excellent bus from Lyon airport (or if you go up the cable car for the views) it feels as large as it is. Once you're in the centre, though, the town feels considerably smaller, almost villagey.

Now, I'm going to get my excuses in early. I didn't take any notes at the match because I was suffering from a near-fatal hangover. My companions and I discovered The Druid near our hotel. One of our number happened to comment that this bar was on TripAdvisor as "the best pint of Guinness in Grenoble". Having drunk Guinness in France before, I knew the bar for such a boast probably wasn't that high but we felt that this was a claim we should investigate.

David, the owner, is a lovely chap from Dublin. His barman, Zac, is a lovely bloke from Liverpool. The Guinness is, indeed, very good (and way better than the comparison pints I had elsewhere, just for investigation's sake, you understand). The Magners is good too - as are the whiskies...

We left sometime around 3am and it took us nearly an hour to make it back to our hotel - a journey of maybe 3 minutes in normal conditions... I have no idea where we walked, nor do I have much memory of large parts of that evening.

The Saturday of the game was the first day for the town's Christmas market and life is always better with Mulled-Wine. It was the beginning of a slow recovery (that probably ended this morning!). I had, however, prevented any chance of my being over-refreshed for the very late 20:45 kick-off!

The Stade des Alpes is reminiscent of the Beijing Birdsnest from the outside, and much like a lot of French municiple stadia inside. On arrival, after my fairly thorough frisking (perfectly acceptable in the very sad circumstances), we checked-out the catering. Any Grenoble supporters coming to the MadStad in January may feel the droopy hot-dog or soggy pie they can get at our stadium doesn't quite live up to the massive plate of charcuterie and fromage they can get at their home games... The only thing is, it's really difficult to eat such a masterpiece and concentrate on rugby.

It seems Irish had bought a few plates themselves as, for the first 10 or 15 minutes of the match, the visiting side chose not to defend in any meaningful sense. FC Grenoble showed how they'd turned the big-boys over with some stylish attacking-play. Their full-back cutting a swathe through the middle of the Irish "defensive" line was a thing of beauty and the hosts put two quick, converted tries in - hooker Heguy driving over and (the pick of the two) openside Fabien Alexandre finishing-off a blistering team-try. It looked bleak, and I'd run out of cheese and ham!

Fortunately Grenoble had got the no-defence memo and Irish soon struck-back. My impression of Irish this season is that Tom C and team have got them doing a lot of things right - we're breaking the line so much more than previous seasons and our pacey backs are showing a lot of threat. This seems to be taking a lot of concentration and so, when we get a bit ragged the basic skills suffer. On Saturday it looked like we were getting there. There were fewer unforced knock-ons and passes were a little more sympathetic. A good platform from the forwards got ball to the backs and revelatory inside-centre Johnny Williams punched a hole through a defence to put Irish in the game. Chris Noakes added the extras.

Both teams now decided that no-defence was going to get silly and the game closed down to a much more cagey affair. Irish were getting the larger part of play, though. Another try was so nearly scored when Tikoirotuma finshed-off a move and dotted the ball down only for the TMO to call the ref's attention to a knock-on by Gerard Ellis in the build-up. Now, there had been a possible knock-on by Grenoble in the run-up to their first but no TMO was called for. I'm fairly sure the TMO can't rule on knock-ons - only foul play. They're certainly not allowed to go back more than 2 phases, which I think this was (it took so long for them to find the footage I kinda drifted off). The try was scrubbed-off. In the build-up sir had signaled a penalty to Irish, obviously we restarted with a scrum to Grenoble.

Irish still had the most of the posession and good chunk of territory. On one rare Grenoble visit to the Exiles half a scrum went down and sir gave a penalty to the home-side. Once they'd all stood up you could see the strips of turf that had come away, I'm really not sure how a team is supposed to keep a scrum up when the grass doesn't stick to the ground. I'm really not sure how a ref can give these as penalties against anyone. It happened a lot for the rest of the game. Only Irish were penalised. This penalty put FC Grenoble 17 - 7 up.

That was how the first-half looked like ending although Irish were bashing hard at the fierce Grenoble defence. Amazingly right on the stroke of half time it gave and a good team move put Jebb Sinclair over the line. Theo Brophy-Clews converted (having replaced Noakes) and the teams went in at 17 - 14.

Given the start of the half Irish will have been well-happy with the score although they could feel hard done-to not to actually be in the lead.

An early penalty in the second half allowed Brophy-Clews to level the scores and it was game-on.

The long-awaited debut of Ben Franks happened when the double-world-cup-winner replaced Halani Aulika at tight-head. The All-Black did very well, scrummaging was good (against a handy French unit), his tackle is fiercesome and he was busy around the park. The only worry was that the medical team had to keep, seemingly, taping one of his ears back-on. By the end of the game he was more tape than man by my reckoning!

Another penalty gave us a 20 - 17 lead from young Theo and that hope was building again. Could we do it?

The second half was even more cagey than the first with both defences holding solid but both sets of backs having occasional darts through. After Grenoble's Bosch had kicked his team level from a rare Irish penalty the only break of any merit was from Alex Lewington who so nearly made the try-line only to be denied by the freakish pace of Gio Aplon.

So that was it, 20 apiece and it seemed a fair result. Only... I've told you about that hope right?

Last play of the game, clock ticking to 80 while Irish set-up a line-out right in front of your correspondent on the Grenoble 10m. Irish chose to throw for the tail. This shows real ambition - the team had shown they could break the French defence and quick-ball off the tail could easily have given an attacking platform to score a try, draw a penalty or get Brophy-Clews into position for a drop goal. Unfortunately, what they didn't factor in was Gerard Ellis had played all 80 minutes of a brutal game. Hitting the tail is tough at the best of times, when you're knackered it's a big ask. The throw went long, was gathered by Alexandre at the tail and offloaded to scrum-half replacement Christophe Loustalot who scampered off for the line.

It was a good run and, of a tired Irish back-line, only Topsy made it to him. Ojo brought him down just short of the line but momentum got him there and the try was scored to the elation of the home support.

All in all, despite the heartbreak, it was a good outing. A bit of luck and it could've been the opposite result. While we can all look back with clarity about that last line-out call, it was a gutsy move from a team that believed they could take the game. The losing bonus point may be crucial - let's hope the other point, or the two extras that FC Grenoble got don't end-up making the difference in the end. Agen and Edinburgh both have to visit the Alps yet, it's not an easy place to win - nice place to visit, though.