He's not a despot but nobody ever claimed he was. We've trawled the newspapers since the first criticisms of O'Sullivan started appearing towards the end of November and there's not one mention of the word despot.

Not one.

It's not for any journalist to comment what kind of a person Eddie O'Sullivan is and in fairness to the profession, after exhaustive research, we cannot find one article that attempted to paint O'Sullivan, the man, the person, in a bad light. Sure, this writer did question the coach's emotional intelligence skills in a piece back in November, but only in the context of the job and dealing with his players, not anything outside of that.

And apparently he agrees on that matter.

The point of all this is to show that all this personal criticism that O'Sullivan has been complaining about is a figment of his imagination. Any article that we've read in the recent past has had a go at his management skills, sure, but only that. The pieces have been structured, calm and for the most part unhysterical.

Why the coach has felt the need to come out and defend Eddie O'Sullivan, the person, over the past couple of weeks, we're not quite sure. It's his coaching abilities he needs to defend, nothing else.

They're the only qualities that have been called into question of late.

Here's the thing O'Sullivan needs to learn about the media. The very word is a derivative of the word medium and us newspaper folk and television people represent that medium between the rugby people out there and the team. Punters from around the land don't generally get the opportunity to quiz the Irish coach and his players; there's simply too many of them. That's why a couple of lucky ones like yours truly do it on their behalf.

We don't just wake up in the morning and decide we'll have a go at Eddie O'Sullivan for a bit of sport to pass the hours until darkness.

There's a reason for it and the reason is because it's being demanded by the people. You can't elbow your way to the bar in the Wanderers clubhouse or the Berkeley Court after an international at Lansdowne Road, Kielys after a Leinster match, Willie Sexton's after a Munster game or even James Joyce's in Porte Maillot last night, without somebody attempting to bend your ear about the harm O'Sullivan is doing to Irish rugby, about how he's not getting the best from a bunch of players that they know are, from watching Heineken Cup rugby and even the second-half yesterday, capable of an awful lot more on the field.

The initial game plan . . .

one that had Ireland 43-3 down at one-point . . . was a disaster and there's only one man responsible for that. The second-half was as much about the players' pride in themselves, and France partly switching off, more than anything else.

Yesterday was always going to be a difficult game for Ireland and a 12-point defeat is no hanging offence.

But even if things had been closer and Ireland had won, it wouldn't have changed an awful lot in the long-term. Over the past couple of weeks the coach has shed his core values in an effort to change Ireland's recent fortunes. There's now a media briefing the morning after a game with all the team's coaches present, meaning he sits alone at the front no more.

David Wallace is now back in the side, a whole host of players from England are involved in the set-up and there appears to be a more flexible and expressive game-plan in operation.

Strangely enough, all that backtracking inspires less confidence in the coach, not more. There were two things you could always respect O'Sullivan for, his unrivalled work ethic and his almost blind faith in his own ability, his own way of going about things. Now the latter of these traits appears to be disappearing.

There have been so many mixed messages on the field over the past couple of weeks, the first-half yesterday for example, it's been upsetting to watch.

What's happened to the coach with the discernable game plan, as rigid and conservative as it may have been? Where's the guy who picked who he wanted to and pandered to no one?

O'Sullivan appears to have lost faith in his own coaching beliefs and that's the saddest thing of all.

Yesterday was his 51st game in charge of Ireland and it appears that his players aren't getting his new message, despite that late comeback. The evidence is out there on the field, as we saw during yesterday's first 47 minutes, by which time we had shipped 43 points to a meagre three from a penalty.

It's just the way things are. And that's the people talking.