Ireland A got a good stuffing at Ravenhill in a bad tempered match where a more cohesive England bullied them off the park.

The fact that Ireland A had only played together for one hour in the previous week makes you wonder what was the point of this game. Irelands spirit just about kept them in the game in the first half, turning round 5- 8 down but in the second half the Saxons scored 24 unanswered points as their superior bulk told.

Wilson and Ferris showed well and held Ireland together for much of the game. Tommy tried to get involved, but outside of Baby Humph the backs were a shambles. The whole front row, Young included, seemed to struggle but they won't come up against many bigger front rows in rest of their careers.

The match had an unpleasant edge all night with the baby faced Saxons hooker Dylan Hartley being particularly irritating and punches were exchanged on several occasions. One particularly annoying practice was the asinine practice of slapping the opposition on the head and goading them should they make a mistake. Surely the referee should stamp this out.

Thankfully none of the Ulster boys got injured and Roger may have given O'Stunted something to think about.

Pictures from Colinh. More pictures here.

Roger & Stephen show well for Ireland A. (Everything's relative!)

Ireland 17   France 20

France ran out deserved winners with a last minute try to break Irish hearts.

France made the better start with a nervous Ireland finding it difficult to retain possession. With all of Ireland's big names misfiring the first half defensive work of Boss and Rory Best should not be underestimated. O'Gara also found some confidence playing off Boss and managed to conjure up a well worked try late in the first half.

Ireland settled in the second half but didn't look like breaking a solid French defence. The incessant Irish pressure did eventually tell leading to two penalties converted by O'Gara.

O'Stunted finally made some use of his bench with Trimble and Flannery coming on at 60 minutes, but it was another 10 minutes before Neil Best made an appearance for the anonymous Easterby. Best's immediate impact showed what might have been if he'd been given some game time.

Despite dominating the second half Ireland went to sleep with a criminally poor re-start and with Horgan going missing in the centre (probably over mouthing off at a touch judge as is his wont) France strolled through the mismatched defense to score the winning try under the posts.

So where now for O'Stunted. does he do the sensible thing and use the rest of the Six Nations to try out a few variations? Probably not as his win ratio is more important than team building.