The Ireland coaching team has made just one change to the starting XV that will face Philippe Saint Andre’s France at the Stade de France on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Munster captain Peter O’Mahony<\/strong> has recovered from the hamstring strain that kept him sidelined for the Italy game and returns at blindside flanker in place of Iain Henderson <\/strong>who reverts to the bench.<\/p>\n Captain Paul O’Connell <\/strong>wins his 92nd<\/sup> cap and packs down alongside Devin Toner<\/strong> <\/strong>in the second row.\u00a0 <\/strong>The 6 Nations leading front-row combination of Cian Healy<\/strong>, <\/strong>Rory Best<\/strong> <\/strong>and Mike Ross<\/strong> <\/strong>will face one of their toughest tests against Nicolas Mas and Thomas Domingo.<\/p>\n Johnny Sexton<\/strong> <\/strong>will again lead the backline having put his thumb strain behind him with a fine performance against Italy.\u00a0 Conor Murray<\/strong> <\/strong>has also fully recuperated from the illness that saw him leave the field early against the Italians. \u00a0Brian O’Driscoll\u00a0<\/strong>is set to make his 133rd appearance for Ireland.<\/p>\n On the bench Iain Henderson<\/strong> <\/strong>provides cover for second row with\u00a0Jordi Murphy\u00a0<\/strong>covering backrow and\u00a0Rhys Ruddock\u00a0<\/strong>dropping out of the match day 23.\u00a0 <\/strong>Ian Madigan<\/strong>\u00a0is introduced to the bench in place of\u00a0Paddy Jackson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Highlights from today’s press conference can be viewed on IrishRugbyTV.<\/p>\n IRELAND Team & Replacements v France, Stade de France, Paris, <\/strong> Player\/Club\/Province\/Caps <\/em><\/p>\n 15. Rob Kearney (UCD\/Leinster) 53<\/em> 1. Cian Healy (Clontarf\/Leinster) 46<\/em> Replacements<\/strong> The Ireland coaching team has made just one change to the starting XV that will face Philippe Saint Andre’s France at the Stade de France on Saturday. Munster captain Peter O’Mahony has recovered from the hamstring strain that kept him sidelined for the Italy game and returns at blindside flanker in place of Iain Henderson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11116,4056,4050,7143,7218,7602,4979],"class_list":["post-64733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irish-rugby","tag-11116","tag-france","tag-ireland","tag-march","tag-nations","tag-six","tag-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64733"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":632830,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64733\/revisions\/632830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRBS 6 Nations Championship, Saturday 15th<\/sup> March kick-off 18:00 CET (17:00 GMT)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n14. Andrew Trimble (Ballymena\/Ulster) 54<\/em>
\n13. Brian O’Driscoll (UCD\/Leinster) 132 <\/em>
\n12. Gordon D’Arcy (Lansdowne\/Leinster) 78<\/em>
\n11. Dave Kearney (Lansdowne\/Leinster) 6<\/em>
\n10. Jonathan Sexton (Racing Metro 92) 42<\/em>
\n9. Conor Murray (Garryowen\/Munster) 26<\/em><\/p>\n
\n2. Rory Best (Banbridge\/Ulster) 74<\/em>
\n3. Mike Ross (Clontarf\/Leinster) 38<\/em>
\n4. Devin Toner (Lansdowne\/Leinster) 14<\/em>
\n5. Paul O’Connell (Young Munster\/Munster) 91 <\/em>capt<\/strong>
\n6. Peter O’Mahony (Cork Constitution\/Munster) 22
\n7. Chris Henry (Malone\/Ulster) 13<\/em>
\n8. Jamie Heaslip (Dublin University\/Leinster) 64<\/em><\/p>\n
\n16. Sean Cronin (St. Mary’s College\/Leinster) 34<\/em>
\n17. Jack McGrath (St. Mary’s College\/Leinster) 7<\/em>
\n18. Martin Moore (Lansdowne\/Leinster) 4<\/em>
\n19. Iain Henderson (Ballinahinch\/Ulster) 9 <\/em>
\n20. Jordi Murphy (Lansdowne\/Leinster) 2<\/em>
\n21. Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne\/Leinster) 53<\/em>
\n22. Ian Madigan (Blackrock\/Leinster) 7
\n23. Fergus McFadden (Old Belvedere\/Leinster) 25<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"