Tommy O’Donnell: ‘It hurts, we should have won’

One look out of his hotel room window at the slate grey Parisian sky was enough to tell Tommy O’Donnell and his fellow Ireland forwards they were in for a battle of attrition with France on Saturday.

What flanker O’Donnell could not have foreseen was that he would be forced into the action quite so early in the affair at Stade de France.

Losing the number seven jersey to a fit-again Sean O’Brien despite impressing for 50 minutes against Wales in the opening weekend had been harsh if somewhat inevitable but the Tullow Tank’s tracks came off with a hamstring tear after just 20 minutes in the French capital and O’Donnell was ready to make up for lost time.