Rory Best the only absentee from Ireland training

Ireland skills and kicking coach, Richie Murphy, confirmed a full participation at Ireland's training session ahead of Saturday's Six Nations clash with France at the Aviva stadium with the exception of Rory Best who continues to follow the return to play protocols after suffering a concussion against Italy in the Stadio Olimpico.

He explained: "Everyone took part in training today; Jamie (Heaslip) was back, Eoin Reddan and Dave Kearney, all in full training." Cian Healy also participated and did some live scrum work.

Murphy continued: “The only one that didn’t (train) was Rory Best because he is on the return-to-play protocols.

“He’s doing really well. The medical staff is really happy. It’s a case of leaving it till later in the week and seeing how he is.”

Ireland coach Joe Schmidt likes his players to be available to train fully in the week building up to a test match, an assertion borne out by Ireland number eight Heaslip's absence from Rome.

However, Murphy insisted that Best remained a viable contender for a place against France. He pointed out, when asked whether the Ulster hooker had effectively been ruled out because he hadn’t been able to take part in two training sessions: “Not at this stage, no.

“We’ll wait and see where he’s at. We’ll have a better indication as to where he’s at on Wednesday evening and we’ll see then.”

Murphy confirmed that Johnny Sexton is in rude health following his enforced 12-week layoff because of concussion issues. "He's fine. He took a full part in training, did contact work today and is raring to go for the weekend.

“The last few weeks have been a little bit frustrating but he understood that he couldn’t play until he got the all-clear. He’s got that now and he’s ready to go. His kicking is going fine. We did some work today and yesterday and he seems to be in a good spot. Obviously he hasn’t taken any competitive kicks for a while so we will see how he gets on at the weekend.

“It’s a pretty big test for him but the great benefit he has is that he has been training so he has had his eye in doing a lot of skill work and non-contact stuff that we have been doing. It’s not as bad as somebody coming from injury where they haven’t been able to touch the ball. He’ll be ready to go.”

Schmidt admitted in the immediate aftermath of the victory in Rome that the team had considerable scope for improvement; much more in the locker so to speak.

Murphy developed the point this afternoon. “I think there is more to come. We were obviously very happy with the result; to win by 23 points in Rome is actually a good result over there. We did feel that from time to time we didn’t get things right so I suppose the massive thing for us this week is to tighten up on those areas and that started yesterday (in training).

“The players have been good, really focused in training: the intensity in training today was really high, putting people under pressure.”

The Ireland team to face France will be announced on Thursday lunchtime while the visitors are set to name their selection tomorrow morning.