Paris holds no fears for Sean O’Brien

Tommy O’Donnell can count himself unfortunate to be demoted on the back of last week’s effort against Wales and yet the heart does flutter a tad faster at the thoughts of the back row Joe Schmidt named yesterday for the Valentine’s weekend date in Paris.

Jamie Heaslip has his critics, but he has been an automatic pick for, combined, four Leinster and Ireland coaches for over a decade now.

Sean O’Brien’s return to fitness is exciting in its own right and then there is CJ Stander looking to back up his extraordinary Test debut. It is an exceptional collection of individuals even if that doesn’t always make for a workable collective.

Stander, as we know, is more accustomed to wearing number eight than six with Munster, for instance, but it will be fascinating to watch how that trio goes about its business.

“Six or seven or eight: wherever you are everyone has different attributes to their game,” said O’Brien when asked about their defensive roles. “Some go hard at the breakdown and some don’t. It’s when the situation arises, you make that decision yourself in a disciplined manner.

“You don’t want to be going into dead rucks and into places where you will affect the team off next phase. They are the decisions you make on the field. There’s no pre-planning of that from our end. It is just all on the day.”

If nothing else, the presence of Stander will take the pressure off O’Brien to plough into and beyond the defensive line. He made a joke along those very lines himself yesterday although that inadvertently brings us back to the oft-debated question as to what Heaslip brings to the table.

Perception is clearly part of the problem.

The Naas man was a barnstorming number eight desperate to seek out wide open prairie with ball in hand when he first burst onto the Leinster team all over 11 years ago, but you could spend a wet week watching old DVDs now to find such a snippet of footage.

“Jamie is the most consistent player I’d say I have ever played with in terms of his attributes in ‘D’ and in attack where he shows up,” said O’Brien who has played alongside Heaslip since 2008. “He is a very smart player and he does a lot of work.

“I think he had the second highest tackle count last week out of the forwards so I don’t know where people are getting that idea.

“His value for the team has been unbelievable and it has been that way since he came into the side.”

All three will find it difficult to live up to the unit’s efforts last week when Ireland engaged in a fascinating and ultimately well-balanced ground war with the vaunted Welsh grouping of Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric and Taulupe Faletau.

O’Brien wasn’t alone in believing that the hosts could have been rewarded last Sunday in the form of some more love from referee Jerome Garces who, he said, was happy for the breakdown to unfold into “a bit of a free-for-all”.

The French back-row of Wenceslas Lauret, Yacouba Camara and Damien Chouly is less celebrated and yet any trip to Paris brings inevitable focus on decades of hurt, balanced by the fact that Ireland have escaped with a draw and victory in the last two trips.

“Irish teams, maybe, in the past accepted (the likelihood of defeat) going over there,” O’Brien suggested. “They were going to try and minimise the score and do themselves justice rather than go out to win the game. That’s a long time ago now. It’s a different time.

“I don’t think it is an intimidating place. There isn’t a fear factor there for us going to play in that ground. I don’t think we can have a fear factor going into that ground over there and trying to perform.”

There was the usual line of thinking heard in ‘France week’ yesterday: about the need to quieten the crowd, or have them turn on the hosts, and about how the deprivation of momentum to any France side must be first and foremost in their minds.

Perhaps, but O’Brien’s priority is personal: stay on the pitch.

This will be his first time to wear the green jersey since facing the French in that final Pool D game in last year’s World Cup when his retaliatory punch to Pascal Pape’s midriff ultimately cost him a place in the side for the quarter-final against Argentina.

Ireland need him on his best behaviour and at his best. That goes for all of them.

“If you have any aspirations to win this tournament, you have to win in France,” he agreed.

“It’s that simple… when you lose over there, you are up against it for the rest of the tournament. Winning in France is momentum. It is the same week to week.”