JOHNNY WATTERSONtalks to Paul O'Connell as Ireland seek an elusive win against France in Paris

“It’s come to the stage now where we believe we can go over there and win. It would be an incredible thing to do. But it is a very tough thing to do. We talk about us being a more confident side than any other Irish side. It’s essential that we produce the goods.

LAST YEAR was the first time Paul O’Connell put France to the sword. The Irish secondrow and occasional captain wasn’t around to see the deflated look on Emile N’Tamack’s face when Brian O’Driscoll ran in his hat-trick in 2000. Wins over the French are always memorable, if only for the lack of them.

But O’Connell’s view is that Irish players travelling to Stade de France with a Grand Slam tucked in their pockets are going as well armed as they have ever been. The 2009 win in Croke Park was, as he puts it, “a good box kick in some of our careers”.

But with the French comes the prospect of playing against a team that deliberately breaks out of structures, picks the ball up and doesn’t put it down again until the opposition forces them to do so. They are playing against the counter-attackers, the blind off-loaders and a mindset that promotes risk taking and creativity.

If the French can’t bludgeon you, they will slice and in a successful game do both.

But there is a simmering aplomb with this Irish team that has come with belief in each other and to no small degree from the resonance of successes in the Heineken Cup. Irish teams that travel to France as often as they do to Wales or England has brought familiarity. With things Gallic Ireland now carry poise, albeit cautiously.

“France gets into a rhythm when they are playing,” says O’Connell. “When they get into a rhythm their off-loading and keeping the ball off the ground . . . it’s the way a lot of them have grown up playing and it’s very hard to defend. Defences these days are very aware of what teams are going to do. I won’t say you can predict it but you can be prepared.

“France keep the ball off the ground and they don’t create rucks. They are an incredibly hard team to defend. Structurally their attack goes out the window and they just have a great rhythm to how they play. That’s probably one of the hardest things about playing against them, particularly in France where they have a home crowd behind them.

“They are incredibly physical and incredibly aggressive when you play them in Paris and as you saw in Toulouse against South Africa the physicality they brought to their game was incredible. That’s probably part of the reason Ireland has struggled there in the past.”

Playing smart was one of Declan Kidney’s warnings during the week. O’Connell agrees but you get the impression that he feels he plays smart all the time. He recognises what France will do and how they will play but he believes in Ireland.

His job on the team is many things and to be a pillar is one. Himself and O’Driscoll are such and Rob Kearney, despite his ultra casual clearance against Italy, is fast becoming one too. In a sense the younger players are not so badly scarred and in the Leinster and Munster camps the trend has been to beat French teams.

“The provinces have gotten used to going away to these tough places and getting good results and getting used to meeting these teams. That’s probably a big part of breaking down the psychological barrier,” says O’Connell understanding that players accommodating pressure is the same thing as Ronan O’Gara practising his kicking.

“You can’t panic against France,” he adds. “You got to expect France sometimes to open you up. And you have to have the cool head to get back and defend your line and make sure you don’t concede the seven points.

“That’s what we did well last year. I think if you look at the game last year we were opened up a few times by their counter-attack play. But we always worked hard and got back into a good position. And when we were down there we managed to produce scores and that will be an important part of the game this weekend.

“I would have always, in my earlier years, been looking at Peter Clohessy playing there . . . very tough times. It’s come to the stage now where we believe we can go over there and win. The big thing then is to go over and do it. It would be an incredible thing to do. But it is a very tough thing to do. We talk about us being a more confident side than any other Irish side. It’s essential that we produce the goods.”

Stay with France for the first half and you are in the game said Keith Wood this week. O’Connell is cut from the same cloth as Wood. One win against France seems indecent. But no longer is the Irish fear the fear itself.