Joe Schmidt has no injuries worries for showdown with France

Evidence of Ireland’s ultimately easy win in Rome was apparent yesterday with a reassuringly light injury list and with it the promise of some big-name returnees for Saturday’s RBS Six Nations visit of France to Dublin.

Sean O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip and Jonathan Sexton will all be expected to feature against ‘Les Bleus’ at the Aviva Stadium while Eoin Reddan and Dave Kearney will also be pushing for some involvement.

Rory Best is this week going through return-to-play protocols after suffering a concussion against the Azzurri. It will be Thursday before he partakes in full training and only then if he passes the various markers required.

The other ‘concerns’ all trained fully, apart from O’Brien who will train today after suffering minor damage to his hamstring in the warm-up against Italy at the Stadio Olimpico.

What role he plays against France remains to be seen. Heaslip is certain to start if fit while Sexton will be available for the first time in 12 weeks after being stood down by a neurosurgeon following four concussions in a year.

The Ireland out-half returned to contact for the first time yesterday and will not be treated any differently to any other player by Joe Schmidt.

Sexton’s expected return comes on the back of Friday night’s opener in Cardiff between Wales and England when George North was allowed to finish the game despite taking a kick to the head and, at another point, being briefly knocked out cold. Wales subsequently claimed their medical team had not spotted the second incident and, while World Rugby have asked for an explanation on the protocols followed, Ireland aren’t expecting any greater scrutiny in that department this week.

“I think the protocols are in place,” said team manager Mick Kearney. “We obviously followed the protocols after Rory took the knock. It would appear the incident with George North was that they didn’t actually follow the protocols.

“As long as we follow the protocols, I don’t think there’s anything more that we can do and I don’t see there would be any more instruction coming down from World Rugby in terms of Rory’s situation.”

Kearney believes the Irish medical team, who station a physio on one side of the pitch and two medics on the other, would not miss something like the second North incident although Sexton’s return invites different questions. College quarterback, Clint Trickett, retired early from American football late last year having suffered five concussions in 14 months while Luke Marshall’s career has been called into question over the same issue.

Leinster hookers Bernard Jackman and John Fogarty retired due to concussion-related issues in 2010 and, while there are few suggesting Sexton’s career is in jeopardy, it must be asked what sort of layoff he would face if he was to suffer a fifth bout so soon.

“I don’t think it’s set in stone,” said Kearney. “Obviously if Johnny does get concussed at the weekend, he’d have to go back and visit his neurologist in Paris and be assessed But I don’t think there’s any definitive kind of rules that would state if you get concussed a certain amount of times that you have to be stepped down for three or four months.”