France v Ireland: Six Nations 2024 opener – live

16 mins. A kick blootered forward by Lowe is this close to rolling dead, but stops short to force Ramos to play it and boot clear. Advantage Ireland.

From the restart the men in green move it quickly right and Aki straightens to get in behind the French line before he offloads to his scrum-half to score.

Crowley converts.

14 mins. France win their first penalty of the game after Beirne ignores the ref imploring him to not use his hands in a ruck. The lineout is won tidily on the Irish 10m line, but the attack fizzles out as Jalibert’s kick is easily marked by Lowe.

10 mins. Apart from the little spurt up the right earlier, the opening has belonged entirely to Ireland, and the latest example of this is Lucu slicing a left foot clearance just about to his own 22.

8 mins. Ben Whitehouse in the TMO shack calls for ref Dickson to have a look at Willemse driving his shoulder into Andrew Porter’s head in the tackle. It’s pretty obvious, and the ref dispatches him; France are down to 14 while the bunker reviews whether it should be a red.

7 mins. It’s an easy opportunity and Crowley makes it so from the tee.

6 mins. Mauvaka is caught offside at a ruck, wide left ten metres inside the French half. Crowley puts it in the corner as O’Mahony shows some early ambition with his captaincy.

The ball is pulled into a maul from the lineout, but the roll can’t get, er, rolling and so Crowley calls it for the backs to have a go. A few phases later France have at least two people offside in the line.

3 mins. France receive the ball and calm it down quickly, allowing Lucu to settle his replacement nerves by booming a decent clearing kick up to near halfway. A tidy lineout from Ireland follows but the it comes to nought and Les Bleus pounce, moving the ball right through hands to Penaud to be forced into touch by Lowe.

Jack Crowley kicks long as the game and tournament heaves into life

AnthemWatch

A Bontempi organ backing track just about holds Ireland’s Call together before an a capella La Marseille blows the sodding roof off.

The teams are on their way out of the tunnel into a flashing tumult of noise of pyrotechnics. The Marseille lads and lasses in the crowd are absolutely pumped for this one.

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

“You can’t really expect to slip in a Billy Joel reference without risking this sort of backlash,” says Scott Blair. “Ahem: Tadgh Furlongest Time.”

Outstanding. Keep them coming.

ITV have just done some pre-match interviews and it’s the Wigan one-two punch as Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards chat about what’s to come. As someone from the same geography, it still feels so very strange that they are leading lights in rugby union.

Absolutely deserve it, mind.

Officials for this evening, for those who like to know exactly what illegality will be ignored in this particular match

Referee: Karl Dickson (Eng)

Assistant Referees: Matthew Carley (Eng) & Jordan Way (Aus)

Television Match Official: Ben Whitehouse (Wal)

Pre-match reading.

Have a gander at what our other writers (the ones whose opinions can be trusted) predict for the tournament this year

Holler at me this fine evening with everything you reckon either on the emither or X-ing @BloodAndMud

Fabien Galthie swaps his all Toulouse halfbacks for the all Bordeaux pairing of Maxim Lucu and Mathieu Jalibert, while Yoram Moefana is given a wing berth. In the forwards, Paul Willemse returns after missing the World Cup, Uini Atonio is unretired, and Francois Cros joins Charles Ollivon and new captain Gregory Alldritt in the back row.

Andy Farrell has finally bestowed non-placeholder status on Jack Crowley who is first choice at stand-off now Sexton has vacated. The backs also have Robbie Henshaw back in for the injured Ringrose at outside centre, and there’s a debut for Calvin Nash on the wing. Peter O’Mahoney captains the side from flanker with James Ryan giving way to the promising Joe McCarthy Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television in the second row.

FRANCE Thomas Ramos; Damian Penaud, Gaël Fickou, Jonathan Danty, Yoram Moefana; Matthieu Jalibert, Maxime Lucu; Cyril Baille, Peato Mauvaka, Uini Atonio, Paul Gabrillagues, Paul Willemse, François Cros, Charles Ollivon, Grégory Alldritt (capt).

Replacements: 16 Julien Marchand, 17 Reda Wardi, 18 Dorian Aldegheri, 19 Posolo Tuilagi, 20 Cameron Woki, 21 Paul Boudehent, 22 Nolann le Garrec, 23 Louis Bielle-Biarrey.

IRELAND Hugo Keenan; Calvin Nash, Robbie Henshaw, Bundee Aki, James Lowe; Jack Crowley, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Joe McCarthy, Tadhg Beirne, Peter O’Mahony (capt), Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris.

Replacements 16 Ronan Kelleher, 17 Cian Healy, 18 Finlay Bealham, 19 James Ryan, 20 Ryan Baird, 21 Jack Conan, 22 Conor Murray, 23 Ciaran Frawley.

Welcome to Paris Marseille as we kick off the 2024 Six Nations Championship with a Friday night humdinger.

Loss is a difficult thing, but some say it’s not the most terrible thing you can experience as it means you had something truly special to begin with. Indeed, it has been posited that knowing that this can’t go on forever is the very thing that compels such strong feelings and effort in a relationship.

Whatever the truth of it, these two sides have known some loss recently.

Ireland have bade farewell for the last time to their captain and fulcrum of the last decade, Johnny Sexton, who headed into retirement to do elaborate, beautifully timed runarounds with his kids and to fume at everyone around him in a non rugby context. France for their part are without their cubic marvel, Antoine Dupont, while he attempts to wash the World Cup loss off by hopefully plunging into the sweet scented waters of an Olympic Sevens win sur mon sol. Romain Ntamack is not here either, for the far more mundane reason of being injured.

What to expect, then, with both teams featuring some percentage of a new pivot partnership as well as new captains? This game last year settled early that Ireland were on for the grand slam that came their way in March, but any such result here will unlikely harbour such a definitive portent.

Both teams will benefit from the enforced departure from the Stade de France, meaning they can enter the fray today in a different arena to the one in which their souls were splintered into a thousand pieces not too many months ago.

Neither coach will wish to revisit something even vaguely akin to that trauma in a few hours; each will feel they’ve already lost enough.