Early French onslaught must be resisted

Time is a healer, they say, but have Ireland had enough hours, minutes and seconds to put right the wrongs of last Sunday’s effort and produce a performance against France tonight in Paris?

Forget the rancour surrounding the refereeing decisions that upset Ireland last weekend and last night provoked a strong statement from the International Rugby Board and Six Nations in defence of Wayne Barnes.

Those may have altered the course of the game, if not the outcome, but there certainly seems to be some obvious fixes on the training pitch at Carton House this week in the wake of that 23-21 defeat at the Aviva Stadium.