O'Driscoll reveals French fears

Brian O’Driscoll fears Ireland could be victims of France’s desperation to atone for their Murrayfield debacle with pressure mounting on the RBS 6 Nations Championship favourites.

France were sent reeling by Sunday’s shock 20-16 defeat by unfancied Scotland and must triumph in Paris on Saturday to keep their championship title hopes alive.

The last Irish victory at the Stade de France was in 2000 – the first year of the Six Nations – when O'Driscoll’s stunning hat-trick inflicted a 27-25 loss on Les Bleus.

But the Irish skipper knows to repeat those heroics would be another seismic upset and pointed to the November victories over Australia and South Africa as evidence of French power on home soil.

“France made a huge amount of unforced errors against Scotland and they never really played themselves into the game,” he said.

“I know French sides in the past have been accused of travelling badly but they play well at home – with the exception of one or two blips like the second half of the Welsh game last year.

“They are always a different side when you play them in Paris and we should take on board more what they did last November than what they did last weekend.

“There’s pressure on the French team and there’s pressure on Bernard Laporte. When your back is against the wall you have a tendency to improve your performance. I’ve been in that position myself. You tend to dig a bit deeper when asked.”

O’Driscoll will lead Ireland for the 24th time, winning his 61st cap in the process, after escaping censure for an alleged stamp on Italy hooker Fabio Ongaro last Saturday.

Italy highlighted the incident after their 26-16 defeat at Lansdowne Road but match commissioner Rob Flockhart decided there was no case to answer.

O’Driscoll claimed he was only attempting to stop Ongaro lying on the ball and declared he would not hesitate to repeat his actions if a similar situation occurred.

“After looking at the incident on the video footage I thought that it was perfectly legal and the right course of action was taken by the match commissioner,” he said.

“It was all within the rules of the game. I don’t think there was any foul play – certainly none was intended. I was trying to get the man off the ball as the referee was indicating a penalty. He was wrongfully there. The way the review worked out speaks for itself.

“I found myself there at times and I think sometimes people can take that option in wanting to give away penalties because they are in trouble elsewhere.

“You sometimes have to take a bit of punishment and not roll off. It’s part of the game – a little bit of gamesmanship to concede three rather than five or seven points is what happens.

“If you find yourself on that wrong side and not moving and part of what you expect to happen is to get rucked out of it.”

There has been much talk of the expected French backlash on Saturday but Ireland have their own point to prove following a poor display against Italy.

O’Driscoll has been surprised by the negativity surrounding the victory but realises it may be an symptom of the increased expectation surrounding Ireland.

“We won the game – I’d hate to see the reaction if we’d lost,” said the 27-year-old Leinster centre.

“The public opinion of the display was low but maybe we should take that as a compliment as it’s no longer good enough just to beat teams like Italy.”