Insider View:  Hotel life can become a bit tedious and the build-up to internationals can induce a little bit of claustrophobia. It was great, therefore, to get out and do a little bit of clay pigeon shooting and archery last Wednesday. It was the perfect tonic when you start to get a little restless.

Frankie Sheahan was brilliant at the clay pigeon shooting and Simon Easterby the closest thing this squad has to Robin Hood. I was pretty happy with my archery score until I heard what the other group managed. It must also be recorded that Ronan O'Gara got 0 out of 20 in the shooting. If only he'd work on his clay pigeon shooting as hard as he works on his game. In fairness, if you closed your eyes, shouted pull, and just fired you'd have a reasonable chance of hitting a clay. He wasn't best pleased as you can imagine. To save his blushes, the lads gave him a few more tries and, suffice to say, that if we were relying on the young Cork man for dinner, we'd have starved.

People may not realise how important it is for the players to have these distractions, like going to the cinema. You train hard, you get your preparation right and are serious about what you're doing, but there are times that you need to switch off from rugby. Otherwise, a certain staleness sets in.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the ol' table tennis this week and the fact that Denis Hickie finished second in a two-horse race.

The rugby game itself was unfulfilling. We won and that was important, but we didn't manage the performance for which we were looking. We might have been able to get off to an even quicker start if I had managed to take that chance in the first half.

Axel (Anthony Foley) probably caught me by surprise. I saw him have a swing at the ball with his left boot and thought, "This'll end up in Row Z". I was very impressed with his ball control, it was a perfect kick that gave me every chance.

I made a beeline for the ball and really should have scored. It's annoying when you get that close. You start to think about the fact that you might have gone a little quicker, although, having said that, it's not as if I was ambling along. In hindsight, I suppose I should have run my line to cut him (Christian Stoica) off. You never make a poor choice in hindsight.

Prior to the game, there was that expectation fostered by the media that it was just a question of by how much we'd win. That can make things a little difficult, for no matter how much you are aware that it's going to be a tough international, it is in the back of your mind that this is a game you should be winning. As a professional, you mustn't allow that to change your focus or perspective, you have to concentrate on the patterns and structures that will win you the game. Victory is a product of playing well, not a divine right.

I don't think it was ever going to be a pretty game against the Italians. People who look for that sort of thing against them should probably watch soccer. The Italians were definitely more physical than either the Welsh or Scottish teams.

It's hard to get your patterns going in those circumstances because they are constantly slowing good ball down and playing on the edge of the offside line. It makes it very difficult to achieve the sort of quality that you need to really cut loose and have a go. It's frustrating, you have to be on the top of your game, clinical, accurate and patient to expose their limitations and we weren't that today.

We threw some bad passes, played the ball in contact situations where it might have been better to show a little more patience. That time I overthrew the pass to Axel, I blamed him and told him he should have been running a wider line. Naw, it was just a case of me having to hurry and putting a little bit much on the pass.

I thought Shane (Horgan) and myself performed reasonably well in the centre. We hadn't played together since the Leinster-Newcastle game on January 5th, which is quite a long time. Shane was a little unhappy with his own display, but that just shows you how much of a perfectionist he is.

I thought John Kelly had a fantastic debut. He has played very well over the past couple of seasons and, in an Irish context, you have to take the breaks presented and no one can argue that he hasn't done that with his two tries. It was more than that though, he was very solid. The basics of his game are as good if not better than most people's. That's what really stands to you in international rugby, if you get the basics right then you can take it from there.

He took his tries well and for Denis Hickie's, he gave a great pass to Girvan Dempsey, who also delivered well. The backs really enjoyed that try because it worked perfectly from the training ground.

In a Paris context, it was no harm that things were a bit sticky on Saturday.

It gives us plenty to work on going into the French game and also that expectation levels are more reasonable.

In an interview with John O'Sullivan