SIX NATIONS/Interview: Hotel to bus. Bus to ground. Ground to bus. Bus to hotel. The players roll out and amble across the car park of the City West Hotel. Some have their boots off, others trail pieces of mud-hardened bandage. Like a platoon of centurions after a heavy day with the Goths, it's a solemn, dishevelled procession, one Anthony Foley has made many times.

The media, waiting above with their batteries charged, hang like buzzards around the coffee. Players straggle in to say their pieces. Foley arrives with a beaded forehead. A master of the microphone, his answers flow confidently. For a man whose international career has been both fertile and bleak, these are lush, blossoming days.

"When you get to this level it is great to be involved," he says. "I don't get tired of it. I don't get tired of the travel. I'd three years without international rugby so every chance I get I tend to enjoy it more. It's great at the moment because not only am I playing a lot of games but we're winning a lot of games."

Last year the media railroaded a few players as the Irish team flunked out. Foley drew a lot of the fire as a player whose game tempo remained steady while that of the match increased.

Then former coach Warren Gatland dropped an incendiary before the championship began, suggesting Foley should have been made captain, not Brian O'Driscoll. But Foley's too much of a heavyweight to be knocked off his game and coach Eddie O'Sullivan's judgement has been sharp.

"Anthony is a very intelligent footballer and he's a guy who has been to the coal face many times and doesn't get too easily ruffled," says O'Sullivan. "He's often been criticised in his performances for not doing this, this or this. The balance is in the backrow with Victor (Costello) now the main talisman, carrying ball. That has released Foley into other roles. He still has huge respect from the squad and he still has a leadership role in the team without being stuck in front of the cameras all the time like Brian."

Foley is in exalted company. With the rebored Costello motoring beautifully and Keith Gleeson purring along at high revs at openside, he can look to Lions players David Wallace and Eric Miller as evidence of back row strength. While Wallace is returning from injury Miller, despite shinning in the A games, is still on the outside looking in. That constant pressure has kept the backrow team honest. But Paris last year still causes cold sweats. Expectations are in check.

"Last time we played them they stuffed us and there is no two ways about that," says Foley. "It's important this time that we don't dwell on that. Talk of a Grand Slam and we're on a hiding to nuthin'. We let them play last year. And once you let a French side play that's how it ends up. If we can get control of first phase ball and try and get into our own game and try and keep them under pressure. We can give this a good shot.

"Last year we struggled at scrum time and we struggled at lineout time. We were on the hind foot all day. This year we've focused on getting our basics right and securing first phase possession. We don't want to be chasing them all around Lansdowne Road on Saturday."

In Foley's mind that means everyone pulling in line, "singing off the same hymn sheet". But he also advises players to look to themselves. For the pack to work, there must be clarity and trust in each other. Mike Ford's road-tested defensive system is the grandest manifestation of team trust and co-operation. It is the smaller links that make it work.

"I actually think fellas are concentrating on their own jobs and not waiting for some one to do it for them," he says. "Look around the pack and there isn't a Peter Clohessy or Keith Wood or Mick Galwey there now. We really have to do our own jobs and trust the guy next to you to do his.

"At the beginning with Victor coming in we tried to tease out what he was good at and what I was good at. We tried not to be set on the fact that he's number six and I'm number eight and at times we interchange. It's important to know our strengths and weaknesses in order to get the best out of us."