Ireland captain Paul O'Connell has expressed his belief that his side's 42-10 win over Italy in the Six Nations leaves them well-placed to face France in their rearranged fixture next weekend.
Ireland had originally been scheduled to play Les Bleus two weeks ago, having been narrowly beaten by Wales the week before, but the match was called off because of a frozen pitch.
Now O'Connell believes that his side are in a better place going into the game than they would have been if the match had gone ahead when intended.
"It's great to get that result going to Paris, so we're probably in a better place than we were the last time we went over," said O'Connell.
"It's a good scoreline, there's no doubt about it. The guys are happy with that. There's a feeling of frustration over the first-half performance and a few of the things we didn't execute.
"But when we did get out of our half we were good and confident. We took our chances well and kept going at them for 80 minutes, which we haven't always done. We have a lot of excellent and classy players and we took our tries well, which was satisfying. It was a good, patient performance."
O'Connell, who has won 84 caps for his country, was named as their skipper after Brian O'Driscoll was ruled out of the Six Nations through injury.
Barney Corkhill
