Video replays show that he controlled the ball with his hand at least twice, and possibly 3 times, in a split second incident 13 minutes into extra-time of the France-Ireland World Cup Qualifying Playoff.

Because of the resulting goal, France won, Ireland lost and won’t take part in World Cup South Africa 2010.

The referee missed the blatent (on replay!) handball at the time. Irish players, management and officials were incensed that such an obvious foul could be missed. Within 2 hours of the incident, 2000+ people had joined the Thierry Henry should apologise to Ireland Facebook group.

But is Henry a cheat and a thief? Well, honestly, I think that’s not relevant.

Sure, you can call him a cheat for his (probably instinctive) reaction, and hold it against him. If he was Irish, would we be complaining? I’d put money down that he himself was surprised the ref didn’t call him on it*. I also think that every sports person on the planet would admit that they occasionally cheat, whether it be deliberate or accidental. That’s why we have referees.

*Update: Henry post-match says virtually identical to the above:

I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref. I played it, the ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him. – Henry

Damien Duff said he doesn’t blame Henry, and that he or Robbie would have tried it and would expect the ref/linesman to catch it.

An angry Twenty Major says we shouldn’t blame FIFA for our players squandering all those chances, and I’m 100% in agreement.

The real fault here lies with the wendybal football authorities on a different issue – they should have brought in video referral for controversial incidents like this one before now.  Every rugby fan is familiar with the question “Is there any reason why I cannot award this try?”. How about a bit of that on the soccer pitch?

Many (most?) professional sports have video or photo evidence: rugby union, rugby league, cricket’s 3rd umpire, tennis, American football, even the photo finish in horse racing and athletics, the list goes on.

I think the real topic in this incident is that soccer needs to bring in video evidence now. Enough of the stupid experiments with goal-line referees – let’s get the computers and videos in there.

Finally, Henry didn’t knock Ireland out. Even after the controversial goal Ireland still had to score just a single goal from the myriad of chances that we squandered. We cost ourselves – but it’s nice to have a scapegoat as we wallow in yet another glorious defeat.

For England – Scotland, I think this is a close game, if Scotland perform like they did in the first half against Ireland then they have a change of winning this game. On the other hand, England started off the Championship so poorly, and I really didn’t rate them (or Johnson who seems more like a captain than a manager). But England have picked it up and played well the last couple of games, resulting in a thrashing of France. Given the home ground advantage, I’ll call this as England by 7 points: England 22 – 15 Scotland.

On to the big game of the day at Cardiff. Lots of people have written off Ireland because we haven’t won the grand slam since 1948, because we’re competing with NZ for the title of top chokers of world rugby, because we’re nervous, etc. I’m happy enough to go into the game as underdog according to most bookies.

First of all the Championship. Wales might beat this Irish side, but it is highly, highly unlikely that they’ll put up more than 13 points against us. Ireland will end today as Six Nations Champions.

Ok, to the real business of the day, Ireland’s potential Grand Slam. This is tough against a good Welsh team who will be doing their damnedest to get revenge on the Irish for many recent beatings in international rugby and club competitions, and to stop us from doing what they could not do this year. Honestly I think the game will be extremely close, but I think this Ireland squad under Kidney just has a psychological edge, a new mental strength, that we didn’t have under EOS. Ireland to win the game by 2 points to win the Grand Slam.

You can follow my updates on Twitter @AMcDermott where I’ll be ranting and raving as the games go on.

I didn’t see much of the Italian visit to Twickenham, what little I did see was predictable but nothing awe-inspiring from England. From the Italian performance they’re still the whipping boys of the 6N, although Scotland look like they might be racing Italy to this years Wooden Spoon.

Ireland had a wonderful start to the championship with a fantasic win over a decent French side at GAA headquarters. France had an experimental but dangerous side and it was real back and forth stuff. Ireland managed to keep the penalty count lower than the French, and with a couple of really spectacular tries from both sides, it was a pleasure to watch. Eventually I think our experience and team play won out, I’m really happy we didn’t let them back in before the final whistle like we might have last year. Great defensive performance there. Particularly delighted for the 3 try scorers – Heaslip for show-casing himself in the Lions selection year, and BOD and D’arcy for both getting deserved scores and coming back into form after a quiet 12 months (particularly for the injured D’arcy). The photo shows my view of the pitch – I was in the middle of a huge crowd of really sound French guys, fantastic folks and not a sore loser amongst them after the game.

Wales are getting rave reviews after what was probably the most boring Six Nations game I’ve seen in years. They are the defending champions, and I expect they’ll improve hugely, particularly by the time we meet them in the last round, but I think the BBC et al are going a little over the top based on a yawn-inspiring performance against a pathetic Scotland team who did their best to knock themselves out. Literally.

I think Williams will enjoy watching the replay of Webster going for a smashing tackle only to knock himself unconscious, and what back wouldn’t want to smile about a tight-head prop knocking himself out after going for a dirty in-the-air hit? btw good call from Alain Roland on Webster, the medico’s should have taken him off the pitch immediately.

Aside: On that point, it’s something that happened during a J4 match recently, one of my teammates took a bang to the head and went down like a tonne of bricks. He immediately rolled up on his feet and continued playing, and noone insisted he go off. In hindsight and after some post-match discussion we agreed it was bad form to have him continue and I very much regret not following my first instinct in forcing a substitution. For all of us, amateurs and pro’s alike, let’s bear in mind that head injuries aren’t to be messed about with, and ignore the player if they want to play on, it’s not worth the risk.

@joescanlon rightly recommended that I mention @patrickphelan‘s analysis of the Twitter #merde tag which people were using to flag tweets related to this game – great work there Patrick!

If you know of another good 6N round 1 post please mention it in the comments.