RUGBY: GERRY THORNLEYtalks to secondrow Donncha O'Callaghan about today's return match with France at the Aviva Stadium

A MULTI-DECORATED, two-time Lions’ tourist, and a nailed on cert to play in his third World Cup, even Donncha O’Callaghan is getting a little agitated.

It’s not so much that D-Day looms on Monday, more the way last Saturday’s game went, especially the line-outs, and the need to post a win. Last Saturday still rankles. Ireland lost a whopping five of their dozen throws, including three in a row in the first-half, and a critical one five metres from the French line in the last throes of the game.

With the wonderfully athletic Imanol Harinordoquy replaced, for light relief, by that noted thorn in Irish line-outs for years, Julien Bonnaire, the huge French defensive line-out seemed to be throwing up jumpers in the right areas on virtually every Rory Best throw. But the steals will still be gnawing at O’Callaghan, the rest of the forwards and coach Gert Smal come kick-off today.

“You never mind if they pinch a ball through good skill and stuff like that but when it’s poor execution, it pisses me off no end because it’s your own mistake. In fairness they have a good line-out. Near the end of the match they had fellas like Bonnaire, but if you look at that last line-out we lost, that was down to our own mistakes.”

“It’s mad when you start chatting about these things. It’s good being down in the team room, it kind of comes from within, where the group is at the moment. Fellas have no problem putting their hand up, which is a great way to have it. But to be honest you’d take better execution this week; that would be great.”

He takes personal responsibility for the last one. “One of our line-outs, their five pinched it through good defence, and you can nearly put that aside and say they read that well, and they did their video work well. But the last line-out, it missed me and I didn’t go back for it. So it’s those ones that piss you off, I’ll be honest.”

O’Callaghan was less concerned about Ireland only pilfering one of France’s 15 throws. “On that I think we’d be happy enough with how we defended. I suppose we did give them an awful lot of ball at the front and they won that, but we read and pulled that maul and I suppose that’s how you want to play against France, you don’t want to give them ball off the tail and leave their backs running at you.” Even that “kills” him though; the prevailing wisdom that ball from the front – his area of speciality – does not provide good attacking ball.

Equally annoying for the forwards that while the scrums looked generally solid, a couple of indirect penalties were compounded by two penalties on their own put-in in the last quarter, one of which cost three points and another denied them a shot at a try for a draw.

Similarly, O’Callaghan points out that the lack of defensive Irish numbers at the breakdown, and counter-rucking, was also to ensure that they kept their defensive shape – and points out that they only conceded one try. Ever mindful of changing trends, in the Super 15 he noticed the way the second tackler sometimes doesn’t compete for the ball but just looks to kick the ball through, as Ronan O’Gara did late on in Bordeaux.

“It is just a new way of turning over the ball. It is different and someone hasn’t thought of it yet. I remember Quinny was doing it the whole time and because he was doing it you were thinking it couldn’t be legal. Obviously it is.”

At least it’s a game under his belt. “It takes a bit of time to kind of get up to match speed and you know coming back to the first club game it’s tough enough coming back into an international, you feel like you’re running around in wellies for about 10 minutes or so.”

It’s also too soon to draw comparisons with the build-up to 2007. “The only thing is that we are incredibly aware that it is all about the rugby. We just didn’t know the last time. It was probably three or four months after it that we kinda thought ‘oh my God’. We were probably feeling like we felt in the first-half against Georgia for the whole game. I have gone full circle. You can do all the gym work and all the fitness courses you want and it doesn’t matter compared to playing games.”

Now 32, he seems as youthful as ever, team-mates quip that he has another two World Cups in him yet. “It’s a real competitive environment at the moment. You’re hearing guys’ gym scores, It’s 40-50 of the best players in the country all competing, it’s enjoyable.”

He acknowledges the primary concerns are executing their patterns and set-pieces and getting defensive and attacking shapes right. “If you weren’t getting those right you’d be disappointed, so there’s a balance to get. But I’d be honest, from a personal point of view I’d take results any time of the week. It’s international rugby. You want to win it. That’s all that interests us.”