Thursday 8 February 2018 06:46, UK
Sky Sports Rugby recount Johnny Sexton's Paris drop goal, and consider it among the pantheon of great Six Nations moments.
Have we seen anything more dramatic than that?
A 45-metre drop goal, after some 41 Irish phases, beginning with their own 22-metre dropout, almost three minutes into dead time, at the Stade de France, when one point behind.
'Rugby's greatest championship', is how the Six Nations superciliously refers to itself.
Though that self-proclaimed label may be distinctly cringeworthy, this tournament does have somewhat of a track record regarding immense moments of sporting drama.
Think Scott Gibbs v England at Wembley in 1999. France and Elvis Vermeulen's last-gasp title triumph in '07. Ronan O'Gara's drop goals in Cardiff. Mirco Bergamasco against France in Rome. England's Croke Park visit. The craziness of Wales v Scotland in 2010. 2015's Super Saturday.
Go back further. Philippe Saint-Andre's Twickenham try in 1991. Gavin Hastings at the death in Paris in 1995. Tony Stanger snatching the Grand Slam from England in 1990. Michael Kiernan's 1985 title-winning drop goal. England's 1980 Grand Slam triumph after two decades of hurt. Wales' glory of the 1970's.
AW Hancock's 1965 try for England in the final seconds over Scotland. Ireland's 1948 Grand Slam in Belfast. 1925's history-making Calcutta Cup win for Scotland in Murrayfield's first ever match. And many more.
Sexton's moment will, justifiably, join such a list.
Ironically, of the three fixtures which opened the 2018 edition of the championship, Saturday's clash in the French capital served up rugby of the poorest quality for the majority.
Not quite the epitome of dour for 77 minutes, but certainly imperfect, mediocre, error-strewn.
Yet, it was to have the most incongruously emphatic finale.
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It's the most filthy day weather wise. Something which never quite comes across via HD television. Piercingly cold. See-your-breath cold. Complete with incessant rain, which morphs from drizzle to drive, but never stops.
The sort of day which turns brown shoes a different shade. And they don't turn back until the next day.
Where raindrops on the lenses of glasses are stubborn. They wobble, but remain in situ.
Still, the stadium is sold-out. In excess of 80,000 people descend upon Saint-Denis, a large portion of them vocal, radiant, and inclemently inclined Irish fans.
Two brothers from Cork arrive draped with Irish flags as capes. An old group of friends from Dublin travel in from all around Europe. They fly, drive, and take the Eurostar. And once on French soil, they become an army of green, white and orange morphsuits.
There's face paint, singing, Leprechaun hats. The usual.
Many have had the well-worn locution: 'you've brought the weather with you' inflicted upon them in thick French brogue throughout the morning.
Except, on this occasion, it's perhaps not the usual advantage or benefit it might have been in decades previous.
That is because, Ireland have arrived in France as clear favourites for, possibly, the first time ever.
Just four times in the last 65 years have an Irish team been victorious in Paris; three times in the last 46 years, and twice in the last 18.
And while indecent conditions may have acted as something of a leveller for technically-devoid and ability-stricken Irish teams of the distant past - particularly against proficient and skilful Les Blues panels - Joe Schmidt's current crop have beaten each and every tier-one nation under his tenure.
Bad weather is now more likely to have an adverse effect than a positive one. And what's more, France are not what they were. And neither is their style of play. Indeed, it wildly differs.
There are several reasons for this, the main one being their domestic league, the Top 14.
Akin to football's Premier League in England, the Top 14 and its commercial success has attracted the best players from around the globe.
But while this has unequivocally enhanced the product, and the ability of French clubs to compete and dominate on a European stage, it has inadvertently damaged the national side - and by extension, its style of play.
For long spells, Saturday's game appears to be slipping away from France's young, inexperienced and ill-disciplined XV. In actuality, they don't enter the Ireland 22 until the 65th minute of the match - an extraordinary statistic.
Ireland are content to knock over penalties and tick over the scoreboard but they never quite manage to rip the French jugular in two.
Despite the lead, and a wealth of possession, they can't shake France and when Sexton misses a routine penalty on 62 minutes, 15 metres in from touch, on the 22, France grow in belief. A small momentum shift is felt.
The longer the match remains a one-score game, the longer that belief can fester into confidence alongside a thundering crowd - La Marseillaise really is a thing to behold in the flesh.
With seven minutes to go, Ireland's lack of a clinical edge looks likely to cost them as France wing Teddy Thomas - in a piece of play incompatible with anything produced on the pitch up to that point - scorches past Rob Kearney and Jacob Stockdale after a poor Irish kick chase.
Thomas' magnificent finish from distance is met with an explosion of collective cacophony. Sheer joy meets wondered surprise. Relief meets rapture.
Anthony Belleau's simple conversion means a one-point lead. Can they hang on?
Soon after, confusion reigns in the stadium for nearly five minutes. Replacement scrum-half Antoine Dupont is down with a serious knee injury. Maxime Machenaud has reappeared onto the pitch - a move permitted only if Dupont is to exit for a HIA: head injury assessment.
Sexton, by now the captain with Rory Best on the sideline, is incredulous, verging on indignant.
"You're the first person who said a HIA. No-one said it until you did," Sexton rages at Nigel Owens. The call for a HIA check stands.
From the resultant scrum, France power over Ireland to win their first set-piece penalty of the day. Schmidt's pack are perhaps distracted, still pondering the bizarre goings-on of seconds earlier. Regardless, it now looks as if it will cost them the game.
By the time Belleau strikes the ball, there are just two minutes and 40 seconds left. But, crucially for the men in green, he misses, hooking wide to the left of the posts.
Within seven seconds, Sexton, who caught the ball as it dropped wide, launches a 22-dropout.
He does it so quickly, one of the assistant referees, Paul Williams, has yet to even cross the 22 again from behind his position of the posts, never mind make it back off the field.
Second row Iain Henderson claims it in the air and Ireland have the ball back, albeit a long way from where they need to be with time rapidly running out.
After 23 attritional and exhaustive phases, Ireland have only advanced some 25 metres to within their own 10-metre line and halfway, when Sexton concocts his next intrepid act.
An audacious cross-field kick, with the clock already 27 seconds into the red, has those of an Irish persuasion either screaming in dissonance, or thinking it foolish.
Keith Earls leaps magnificently above Virimi Vakatawa to claim the trenchant kick, as the volume inside the stadium rises another few decibels.
The plucky play makes another 20 metres, with a tired Ireland now on the French 10-metre line against a spent French pack.
Sexton, momentarily down with cramp, is soon up directing green shirts left and right, but the French defence is robust and resolute.
Such is the level of fatigue that has set in, players are operating off instinct more than theory. They are running off fumes.
Forwards Jack McGrath, John Ryan, Sean Cronin, Peter O'Mahony, Devin Toner remain on their feet at the ruck and clear effectively time after time, while Henderson, CJ Stander and Dan Leavy attempt to gain ground with each passing carry. It's a remarkable passage.
The backs too are clearing and carrying as Robbie Henshaw, Bundee Aki and Fergus McFadden, in particular, throw their weight in.
Any mistake is the game. It's any potential Grand Slam gone. It's likely a title shot evaporated.
As Conor Murray trots to a 40th breakdown, he shares a look with Sexton. A non-verbal agreement between the half-backs is hatched. "A flick of the eyebrows," Murray says in the mixed zone afterwards.
He snaps the ball back, with Sexton fully 45 metres from the French posts. Too long surely? With a wet ball, in driving rain, under the most intense of pressure.
For five seconds, the ball and Nigel Owens are the only kinetic things within the entire stadium which matter, as 30 enervated men watch on from the pitch, and several thousand briefly hush from screams to quiet.
In the press box, three different intros have come and gone in seven minutes, but what has been witnessed can't but leave an impression of awe.
Owens' arm raises. The whistle blasts, and it's soon followed by three more sharp blows to end the game. Somehow, someway, Ireland have pulled off a victory.
From Sexton's 22-dropout to his match-winning drop goal, five minutes and 15 seconds have elapsed. Ireland have been in possession for the entirety of that period. A stat virtually unique in the sport.
The clock is two minutes and 42 seconds into dead time. The Irish players jubilantly celebrate back in their own half with a pile-on, something normally reserved for football, and rarely, if ever, seen in rugby union. But this event, this whole situation, is not the norm.
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There are some who will cry hyperbole in the wake of the reaction to Saturday's climax.
The point this misses, of course, is that victories of this magnitude are rare enough as it is. But the method in which it was fashioned, is almost unheard of. 41 phases? Over five minutes of possession? It's astounding.
To put that into perspective, France were in possession of the ball for just over 14 minutes throughout the entirety of the match; Ireland held onto the ball for 36 per cent of France's total match possession stats in one play at the very end of the game.
When New Zealand did what they did to Ireland in the final stages of their 2013 autumn victory, recycling ball for what seemed an eternity before winning with a last-gasp Ryan Crotty try, it was a little over two minutes of possession.
And then the kick itself. Statisticians say, based on prior performance data, the chances of Sexton landing such an attempt was 23 per cent, in any conditions.
Sexton faced teeming rain, after 41 phases, under an intense degree of pressure. It was exceptional.
And so Ireland march on. Can they win the Grand Slam? If Saturday's performance is anything to go by, then no.
They failed to perform to anywhere near the levels of pre-match cajolery that was imbued upon them. The pre-tournament hype was almost exclusively positive and it very nearly, for a second consecutive year, fell flat on the opening day.
But the way this match was won. The way the whole squad contributed to a victory of immense importance, could yet spur them on. It could turn out a defining moment.
There have, of course, been drop goals within the sport that have claimed greater prizes. Jonny Wilkinson for a World Cup in 2003. O'Gara for a Grand Slam in 2009. Joel Stransky for a World Cup in 1995. JPR Williams to seal a Lions series in 1971. Jeremy Guscott likewise in 1997.
But given the circumstances, the origins of the attack, the conditions, the distance. The patience, skill, energy and discipline required. There is genuine credence to the argument it is the finest drop goal ever struck in Test rugby.
So have we seen more dramatic than that in the lengthy annals of 'rugby's greatest championship'?
Well, it's certainly up there.
