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DECLAN KIDNEY will give Stephen Ferris every chance to prove his fitness for Saturday’s crunch Six Nations showdown against France in Paris. Protocol decrees the team be formally named tomorrow, and with the Ulster bruser having trained fully yesterday the indications are he will be named in the starting line-up.

The desire to accommodate Ferris’s physicality in the collisions and offloading skills has possibly been accentuated by the loss of Donncha O’Callaghan, with the backrow liable to be a key area. The French trio of Fulgence Ouedraogo, Imanol Harinordoquy and the human wrecking ball that is Thierry Dusautoir wreaked considerable damage against the Scots in Murrayfield last Sunday.