Ronan O’Gara and Andrew Trimble are the main injury concerns arising out of yesterday's 29-11 win over Italy in the opening game of Ireland’s Six Nations Grand Slam defence. Both came off late in the game at Croke Park and will be monitored over the next 24 hours, as will Paul O’Connell's eye injury, but the lock is expected to resume training with the squad tomorrow.
O’Gara took a knock to the knee and was replaced by Paddy Wallace after scoring 16 points. The IRFU said today he was withdrawn as a “precaution”, while it also announced that Leinster outhalf Jonathan Sexton is among 11 players called back in to train with the squad this week.
A strained hamstring was the reason Trimble was replaced by Keith Earls yesterday and he too will be monitored closely over the next day or two.
Along with Sexton, Donncha O’Callaghan and Stephen Ferris return to training, having been left out of the matchday 22 at the weekend because of a leg and knee injury respectively.
Also called in are Tony Buckley, Gavin Duffy, Chris Henry, Marcus Horan, Denis Hurley, Shane Jennings and Leicester wing Johne Murphy.
Kidney, who is due to name his side to face France in Paris on Tuesday, expects a measured improvement from his charges in training this week, after a patchy performance against durable opponents in the tournament’s opening fixture.
Tries by Jamie Heaslip and Tomás O’Leary, 16 points from O’Gara and three from his replacement Wallace ensured it was a comfortable but frustrating victory.
“We’ll need to do more in Paris but France should play a different game to Italy and will present their own challenges,” he said. “In every area we need to improve, I’m under no illusions about that. If we let the same happen against France, we won’t win.
“But we can’t go too far down that road as seven days is a quick turnaround.
“I’m disappointed we didn’t score more tries against Italy. I was hoping we’d get an extra few.
“I wouldn’t be delirious about the performance but I won’t knock it either. We need to keep a balance on things.”
The coach added: “We need to work on our support play and look to see how we can strike off the set pieces,” said Kidney. “We did okay defensively. Our kick chase and counter attacks must get better.
“But players will benefit from that game in that they will now be more cohesive.
“The more often they play together the better chance they have of reading the nuances of each other’s body language.
“It’s repetition of doing the same things. One more game will result in a few less passes dropped next time.”
Ireland’s last two visits to Paris have seen France surge ahead before surviving a second-half fightback and Kidney is determined to avoid conceding early tries on Saturday.
“I haven’t seen exactly the scores for the last four trips to France but maybe we should try to bat first this time by not giving them the ball,” he said.
“I’m not sure what ‘Allez, allez’ means but I know that if we hear it next Saturday we’ll be chasing the ball around.”