France's Mathieu Bastareaud blocks Ireland's path to Six Nations title

Snow was drifting across the covered pitch at Marcoussis when "the Wrecking Ball" went into action. Time after time in a short contact session at the end of training, Mathieu Bastareaud was sent clattering into the midfield. It was what the television crews wanted and Marc Lièvremont made sure they got their pictures. The subplot to France versus Ireland in Paris – Bastareaud versus Brian O'Driscoll – started running once the centre scored twice against Scotland last ­Sunday. Whether it will work out so ­simply is highly debatable. Does Lièvremont think beating Ireland, the grand slam champions, will just be a question of running a big ball-carrier? If he did, he would hardly tip his hand quite so obviously before a pivotal weekend in the championship. It is more likely that once the cameras had been turned off and the press corps escorted off campus, France's defence team got down to the serious business of teaching Bastareaud how to defend against O'Driscoll, Gordon D'Arcy and Ronan O'Gara, who have been together for three triple crowns and last year's slam. O'Driscoll has scored 38 tries for ­Ireland, including a hat-trick against the French in Paris in 2000, and the Irish will be delighted if Bastareaud repeats the hot-headed charges out of the line which at times rendered the French rush defence a shambles at Murrayfield. If Ireland have fears, they are more likely to concern the French pack. Without the Biarritz loosehead Fabien Barcella, France still dominated the scrum against Scotland. Barcella's replacement, Thomas Domingo, may be small by modern standards but he has a habit of getting under big men like Ireland's John Hayes and he could be more of a handful than the Italian front row was last week. The French back row, of Thierry Dusautoir, Fulgence Ouedraogo and Imanol Harinordoquy, is a match for David Wallace, Jamie Heaslip and Stephen ­Ferris. The latter was given every chance to prove his fitness before Declan Kidney settled on his team. What France do with their ball will be interesting. They will have to have more of a kicking game than they employed at Murrayfield. That is why Lièvremont has chosen the Brive wing Alexis Palisson over the more experienced Julien Malzieu, who would have been a more like-for-like replacement for his injured Clermont Auvergne club ­captain, Aurélien Rougerie. Palisson can also take on the place ­kicking if Morgan Parra has an off day. There have been mutterings that Ireland might put aside their territorial game after their stuttering performance against Italy, but with O'Gara holding off Johnny Sexton at fly-half that is not likely to happen yet. And as the second-row Paul O'Connell admitted this week, the Irish fear an unstructured game. "France are very hard to defend against when they get into a rhythm, offloading and keeping the ball off the ground," said the 2009 Lions captain. "Defences these days are very prepared for what opponents are going to do, but France's offloading game makes them an incredibly hard team to contain. Structurally their attack goes out the window. Once they've offloaded and broken you, it becomes a scramble defence and that's when it comes down to work rate and desire." That means Ireland will have to keep France on a tight rein if they are to win in Paris for the first time since O'Driscoll's famous hat-trick. Before last year's 30-21 win at Croke Park, O'Connell had played France seven times without a victory. "The history of the fixture gives us motivation," he said. "If we beat France away from home it will be an incredible feeling and a good box ticked. It would be a highlight in my career. In my earlier years I looked at guys like [the prop] Peter Clohessy having very, very tough times over there. Irish teams sometimes went to Paris with high hopes, sometimes not, but always came off second best. But it's got to the stage now where we believe we can go over there and win. Now we need to actually do it. We talk about us being a more confident team than any other Irish side. We've always taken talented teams to Paris but now we're going there with a grand slam. You can't argue with that." Unfortunately the bookies can, suggesting France will win a tight game.