VIDEO: Paul O’Connell: A timely reminder of where we need to be

Paul O’Connell last night warned his Ireland side they have a mountain of a challenge in front of them if they are to beat France next Sunday and top their World Cup pool.

Joe Schmidt’s squad travel west to Wales today to first recover from a gruelling 16-9 victory and tense performance against Italy at London’s Olympic Stadium yesterday, before beginning their preparation for the most difficult test of their campaign to date, the Pool D decider with the French at the Millennium Stadium.

Ireland captain O’Connell was far from satisfied with his team’s performance in overcoming a spirited Italian side but after two straightforward victories over Canada and Romania the lock agreed it was a valuable reality check.

“It was probably a timely reminder of where we needed to be,” O’Connell said.

“There’s so much quality now for the rest of the competition. When we play France, if we turn over the ball to them, with the forward carriers that they have, and the backs they have, we’ll be in big trouble.

“That’s been something we haven’t done when we’ve won big games. When we performed well in the autumn internationals and the Six Nations, we’ve been very good at denying teams access by our good set-piece and our accuracy with the ball.

“We need to do that again next weekend.”

France, who will have the advantage of an extra three days’ rest having played their third game in the pool against Canada last Thursday, are a team O’Connell would rather avoid.

“I haven’t got a fantastic record against France. To me they’re an incredible side with incredible talent. They have size, physicality and, obviously, great skill and talent. They play with a lot of passion and emotion as well.

“Any Irish team that goes up against a French team, it’s always a massive challenge for us. In recent years, we’ve done well but the games have been really, really tight.

“For us, we’ve had to produced massive performances to make those games tight. I think we’ve had two draws in the last four years. We’ve managed to win two but they’ve been short one-score games.

“It’s a mountain of a challenge. We knew how tough this game was going to be all the time. We were hoping it was going to come down to the last round of the pool stages. Hopefully, we can produce the performance that is needed.”

Head coach Schmidt said he hoped to have a full complement of 31 players to choose from after his matchday squad appeared to come through a physical battle with Italy without mishap. The only concern might be the bruised foot that prevented Jared Payne from playing yesterday although Schmidt said the outside centre had resumed jogging while fellow absentee Rob Kearney, who suffered a gluteal strain against Romania eight days ago, trained fully on Friday.

“Headaches,” Schmidt said of his selection issues, “and that’s a good thing at this stage of the competition.”