Blanket ban ends captain's run in Paris

ALREADY sweating on the availability of Stephen Ferris and faced with a six-day turnaround after the defeat to Wales, further inconveniencing the Irish squad prior to Saturday night’s meeting with France in Paris is the news that neither side will be able to conduct a captain’s run at Stade de France on Friday due to the adverse cold snap.

This will also prevent the kickers from practising at the ground the day beforehand and, for example, Jonathan Sexton’s only previous appearance at the venue was for a dozen minutes two years ago as a late replacement in the 33-10 defeat to the French.

Temperatures in Paris are not set to rise above two degrees Celsius all week, reaching overnight lows of around minus six degrees each night, and potentially minus seven degrees come Saturday’s 9pm kick-off local time.

Both captain’s runs were cancelled prior to the France-Italy game last Saturday when the pitch covering was removed three hours before the 3.30pm kick-off.

But the later kick-off this Saturday makes this a bigger problem for stadium organisers, who are expected to keep the pitch covering on until two hours before kick-off.

Built at a cost of €290 million for the 1998 football World Cup which France won, somewhat notoriously the pitch does not have under-soil heating, though the single covering which has been on the Stade de France pitch is a hot covering and with no snow forecast the match is expected to go ahead as scheduled.