Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
- Now while 62,000 people were watching this game at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais I was watching this game at Lyon Airport
- The reason for that can be explained here – http://realfootballman.com/football/weekend-lyon-euro-2016-adventure/
- What an ideal start for the Republic Of Ireland though as they went ahead after just 2 minutes
- Shane Long was felled in the box and after a moments deliberation he was awarded a Penalty
- Robbie Brady duly stepped up and slotted home in off a post to give the boys in green a dream start
- But had they scored almost too early
- That goal was then going to mean 88 minutes of French pressure
- The Irish did well to keep them at bay though and looked lively throughout the first half
- It was at times seat of your pants defending but they came through that first 45 minutes in was absolutely sweltering heat unscathed
- Ireland did have a few half chances to make it 2-0 and you almost felt that trying to protect a slender lead for so long that if they could have doubled and really caused France some trouble then it would have been a different scenario altogether
- Again Didier Deschamps made changes and this time they were very attacking
- N’Golo Kante was bought off for Kingsley Coman
- France were now really going to go for it
- And they were much quicker out of the blocks in the second half
- For Ireland it was a repeat of the Sweden game, starting brightly but a different side after the break
- Laurent Koscielny had a guilt edge chance to level but he put his header wide
- Then it was the Antoine Griezmann show
- A cross from wide right from Bacary Sagna saw Griezmann once again ghost in with a header for his second of the tournament and an all important leveler for France
- That took the wind out of Martin O’Neill’s side
- And they were to be really hurt just three minutes later
- Antoine Griezmann breaking Irish hearts on the hour
- Oliver Giroud won a knockdown for Griezmann and the Atletico forward was clean through
- He then powered a finish past the helpless Darren Randolph to turn the game on it’s head and put the hosts ahead
- It would go from bad to worse just moments later as Griezmann was put through again
- With a hat-trick looking likely he was hauled down by Shane Duffy
- His desperate lunge stopped France going 3-1 ahead but he was shown a Red Card and with Ireland down to 10 men it was game over
- With the heat being a telling factor the extra man for France was a huge advantage
- For those last 25 minutes or so the tempo was set by the French as the Republic failed to get near the ball
- Pierre-Alan Gignac was inches away from making it three as his curling effort came back off the bar
- Jonathan Walters had a late half chance flash past Hugo Lloris’ goal and was the last roll of the dice for the Irish
- France saw out the game and once they had numerical advantage both on the pitch and in terms of the score they never really looked back
- The Irish gave it there all but they couldn’t get the desired win for the traveling army of fans
- Although they would no doubt be drinking throughout the night regardless
- France now will await the winners of the tie between England and Iceland Tonight
- Just like the weather the tournament is starting to heat up
Breaking News
