David Sneyd

STOP ME IF you think you’ve heard this one before.

The Smiths will not be the band of choice for most Ireland fans looking for solace tonight but those lyrics ring true yet again.

The manner of this 2-0 defeat had a very, very familiar feel to it.

A long-range strike followed by a second goal early in the second half. They are two of the hallmarks of Stephen Kenny’s time in charge, even if on this occasion the quality and class on show was of a far greater calibre than against the likes of Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Scotland, Ukraine and Greece when similar decisive acts were carried out.

France make you believe you have a chance against them.

They don’t mind you carrying that little flicker of hope along for large periods – tonight they let Ireland hold dearly to their dreams of a patented 1-1 draw until substitute Marcus Thuram scooped a finish into the roof of the net in the 48th minute.

Until that point it felt like Ireland could possibly have a chance.

But only because France let them.

They simply pick their moments to wake from a slumber and break your heart – the move for Thuram’s goal a perfect example crafted by the delicacy of Antoine Griezmann on the edge of the box.

So yeah, get comfortable in the game, have a nice touch of the ball and ease yourself in.

They don’t mind if you get comfortable.

Have the ball if you want, lads.

Feed it into Jayson Molumby and give Josh Cullen a feel beside him. No problem to get Jason Knight involved too. Knock it back to John Egan and go square to Shane Duffy. Let Gavin Bazunu ping one out to Alan Browne on the right so long as a pass back to Nathan Collins is his best option.

No bother at all.

Work away, lads. You enjoy yourselves. Make yourselves at home.

France are not a team to try and suffocate you with defensive intensity unless it is a necessity, but they know how to kill momentum.

An extreme example tonight being Aurélien Tchouaméni’s outrageous controlled shot from Kylian Mbappe’s lay off in the 19th minute at a time when Ireland would have been feeling great about how the night was going and feeling pretty confident.

If they were tourists in Paris the France opener probably came around the time the Ireland players were starting to feel brave enough to venture beyond some of their Junior Cert phrases with the locals.

Non, non, non mon amis. Ne sois pas stupide.

It may  not seem as if this brilliant French side have an equivalent word for gegenpressing, or if they do, Didier Deschamps has ripped the page out of the dictionary, but when they sense a bit of danger in the middle third or on the flanks that is when they get serious.

Tchouaméni dominated the centre of the pitch with a graceful kind of power and ruthlessness. His technique for the goal was delightful, in a painful kind of way.

When the ball struck the net the mind wandered back to that stunner he also rifled in low and hard against England in the World Cup quarter final last year. Fair to say we all enjoyed that one more.

Incredibly given the pureness of the strike, that was the only goal Tchouaméni scored for club – Real Madrid, of course – and country in 67 appearances last season.

The way the 23-year-old read danger and cut out some of the attempted avenues to find an outlet into Adam Idah’s feet was a killer for Ireland.

And when Chiedozie Ogbene did manage to get turned and open his legs in behind Theo Hernandez, the left back took a yellow card near the halfway line in order to prevent the counter attack going any further.

Idah – starting in place of Evan Ferguson – faded in the second half after providing some brief glimpses of impressive hold-up play.

Ireland just couldn’t build any real kind of pressure in the final third because, simply, Tchouaméni and France didn’t allow them.

There were times in the second half as Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele – who hit the post – came forward in waves when you began to wonder if France would become the first team since Cyprus in 2006 to score five against Ireland in a European Championship qualifier.

A mixture of poor finishing and last ditch defending from Egan, Duffy and Cullen prevented that piece of history.

And another comfortable win means James McFadden and Syarhey Kislyak can also rest easy.

Their claim to fame lives on.

Since the turn of the century, France had lost just two Euro qualifiers at home.

Those defeats came against Scotland in 2007 and Belarus in 2010.

Naturally, then, the obvious conclusion is that every so often they lower their guard and allow a minnow deliver a sucker punch to set them straight.

But France were never going to let that happen here.