Ireland captain James Ryan rues poor discipline following defeat to France

Ireland's stand-in captain James Ryan admitted that poor discipline led to their defeat against France in the second round of the Six Nations tournament.

While Mackenzie Hansen, Josh van der Flier and Jamison Gibson-Park scored tries for Ireland, France riding on tries from Antoine Dupont and Cyril Baille kept them in the hunt before Melvyn Jaminet with six penalty kicks guided them to a 30-24 victory.

“It was very tough and they’re a very serious pack,” said Ryan.

“When you give them access into the game through little mistakes, handling errors and a little bit of indiscipline at times, the whole game becomes much harder.

“The big thing for us is limiting their entries into the game, which maybe we let ourselves down with at times.”

Ireland had a successful Autumn Series campaign last year and also started the tournament with a 29-7 win over Wales but Ryan said they were wary of the quality the Les Bleus possess.

“It was nothing we didn’t expect coming to Stade de France,” said the 25-year-old.

“It’s always going to be a very, very tough game. But hopefully we showed we were able to live well with that intensity.

“We showed great spirit to claw our way back into the game but, look, it was an intense game and we’ll take loads from it.”

Ireland are at third place in the Six Nations table with a win and a defeat apiece in two games and will face and will face Italy in the third round on 27th February.