They're all back. Not only have Brian O'Driscoll and Paul O'Connell returned to the Irish fold in prime form, but David Wallace will make his first Six Nations start since the Triple Crown decider against Scotland two seasons ago for Saturday's opener against Italy at Lansdowne Road.

The one other change in personnel from the sides which played the All Blacks and Australia last November sees Jerry Flannery, a debutant as a late replacement against Romania in the third of that uninspiring trilogy, make his full Test debut.

Most of the close calls went as expected. Flannery's run of big performances in high-profile games edged out Rory Best, Malcolm O'Kelly fended off a late charge from Donncha O'Callaghan, and Tommy Bowe holds his position on the wing ahead of Andrew Trimble, after the omission of Denis Hickie and Girvan Dempsey.

The openside flanker decision was a tight call either way, given what Eddie O'Sullivan said last autumn about what he considered a well-balanced backrow of a proven lineout option, a ball-carrying number eight and a breakdown specialist at number seven; ie, Simon Easterby, Denis Leamy and Johnny O'Connor. Instead, the teak-tough Wasps groundhog is consigned to the bench.

The return of Wallace arguably gives the backrow more dynamism with the ball in hand, and while Easterby is a favourite of O'Sullivan's, he'll have to perform better than he did in the autumn given the intense competition in this area of the team.

O'Sullivan pointed out that the Italians "are a pretty nuggety pack, there'll be a lot of close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat, so it's kind of a backrow to meet that. But, to be fair, David has played particularly well in the last month or so."

While he acknowledged that Wallace has always been a world-class ball-carrier, O'Sullivan cited the players' dramatically improved work-rate at the breakdown and defensively.

"Against the Sale Sharks he got six poaches at ruck-time, which is a colossal amount of work on the opposition ball, and it's an area that maybe he hadn't focused on as much before. We talked to him at length after the autumn about the areas of the game he had to work on, and obviously he's put those to right."

Wallace's omission last autumn was attributed to not being in the Munster team; yet, Wallace had started and played outstandingly well in Munster's 42-16 home win over Castres in the European Cup prior to the selection of the Irish squad. That was his fifth start of the season, along with two replacements' appearances out of Munster's first eight games of the season.

By comparison, O'Kelly, who started the All Blacks and Australia defeats in November, had played only one full game for Leinster beforehand, along with one appearance as a replacement.

A fixture in the side in 2000-01 and 2001-02, Wallace played through the pain barrier with a shoulder problem which would require an operation. A reaction to the three bolts which were inserted in his shoulder caused a huge cyst, and effectively wrote off the 2002-03 campaign as well.

Despite performing well in the warm-up matches, he missed out on the World Cup and didn't have a sufficient run of games or form with Munster last season, until late in the campaign.

So this is Wallace's first Test since the Japan tour last summer, and his first in the Six Nations since he scored a try against Scotland after being called up for the injured Keith Gleeson.

Indeed, while Wallace has played in only six of Ireland's last 42 Tests, dating back to the end of the 2002-03 season, strikingly, he has scored tries in four of those half-dozen appearances.

Behind Rory Best in the autumn, O'Sullivan said Flannery has "had a good run of form, and has probably edged out Rory based on his performances in the Heineken. Pretty much the same in all the calls, pretty tight, but these are the form fellas at the moment."

As ever, a collective end-of-pool surge of form has paid off individually for Munster, who provide all but two of the pack, as well as the halfbacks, while Leinster have four in the starting line-up and there's one each for Ulster, Llanelli and Leicester. The one uncapped player in the 22 is back-up scrumhalf Eoin Reddan.

With regard to Ireland's opening performance, O'Sullivan said: "I'm looking for a good solid performance from the pack at set-piece time, and I'm looking for the backs to be pretty precise when we have the football and get some continuity in our game. Obviously, when we don't have the football, we'll need to defend in what's going to be a pretty physical game. So it's about getting our basics right in the first game of the championship and making sure we keep our mistakes to a minimum and hang on to the football when we have it."

O'Sullivan expects Italy to play to their strengths - ie, their pack, in traditional style. And the Azzurri will be fresh and fired up as usual for the opening weekend.

"We're not going to win it in the first 20," O'Sullivan said, "and if it takes 60 or 65 minutes to wear them down, so be it".

O'Driscoll, who returns for his 60th cap, and 23rd as Irish captain, maintained his feelings were "not so much a sense of relief, (it's) just nice to be around camp again and have the excitement of the Six Nations again.

"It's a great feeling being involved in the best games. I didn't doubt that I'd get the opportunity again, but now that it's here, I'll relish it, as I always do."

While confident about his own performances again, O'Driscoll maintained that the lavish praise of his performance against Bath was as over-the-top as the criticism which preceded that game, and he believes he still has another five or 10 per cent of improvement left in him.

An awful lot has happened to O'Driscoll in the last year, what with captaining the Lions and then being sidelined for six months, and he admitted it's made him older and wiser.

"One thing it does is make me relish the good opportunities and good wins we've had that little bit more. That was probably my first really big disappointment in my career, being out for that length of time and the way it happened.

"I have something to balance myself out, and I do know that I'll certainly not take things for granted as much as I did in the past."