Jamie Heaslip trusts Ireland to overcome scrum worries

St Patrick’s Day has always tended to divide opinion, but no-one in Irish rugby circles remembers the national holiday from four years ago with anything other than horror given the misfortune that befell Declan Kidney’s side in Twickenham.

A scoreline of 30-9 only hinted at the embarrassment that accrued from a scrum that lost Mike Ross to injury and, with Tom Court forced into the unfamiliar surrounds of tighthead, coughed up all but six of the home team’s points in one form or another.

It’s a scenario that still seems all too vivid now, given events in Paris two weekends ago, when Guy Noves unleashed his first-choice front row on a tiring and depleted Irish pack and was rewarded for the tactic with a 10-minute pummelling at the setpiece and the try that turned the tie.