Ireland claim top position after beating France 19-9

Ireland 19-9 France, Aviva Stadium
Scorecard

Conor Murray scored the only try in the game while Johnny Sexton was impressive on his comeback as Ireland claimed the pole position in the Six Nations 2017 table with a 19-9 win over France at Aviva Stadium on Saturday.

Remi Lamerat was denied a try early on after Gael Fickou was found knock on but a double penalty from fly-half Camille Lopez got France to a six-point lead at the end of the first quarter.

Ireland made a strong comeback when centre Robbie Henshaw offloaded to Murray, who was also the man of the match as he crossed over in the 29th minute and Sexton scored the conversion to take Joe Schmidt's men to a slender one point lead at half time.

Sexton, who went past 600 points for Ireland showed a lot of spirit in the second half and contributed with two penalties sandwiched by a drop goal as the lead for the hosts stretched to 10 points.

France showed some resilience in the final 10 minutes when Lopez kicked his third penalty to bring down the gap to seven points but the replacement Paddy Jackson scored his first penalty in the game with a successful kick in the 75th minute to secure a 10 point victory for Ireland and keep them in contention for the Six Nations title.

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