Hands across the Liffey; passports, travel visas, road maps and sherpas at the ready. At last history is upon us. Rarely has a refreshingly different day of days appeared so long in the making.
It isn't mawkish to say Irish sport, and to some extent the country as a whole, has rarely put such a positive foot forward. Now comes the tricky part.
The sense of occasion will be seismic, and the pressure on the men in green is simply enormous.
No one is more aware than the players of the huge honour being bestowed on them this week. In their words they have handled the pressure maturely, pressing all the right buttons, saying all the right things. The hope must be they will now be inspired by it, not weighed down by it. In some respects they are the luckiest men in Ireland; in other ways you wouldn't envy them.
The pressure to win has intensified with each passing day, right until yesterday, when they were hit by the double whammy of losing their talismanic captain, Brian O'Driscoll, and the little warrior Peter Stringer, who between them have 144 caps.
It is on days like this when you want your bought-the-T-shirt standard-bearers, but if the dual blow had to come it was sensible that coach Eddie O'Sullivan and the players themselves unselfishly came to realise what always looked, with O'Driscoll especially, an unlikely race against time.
Their absence is not quite as disruptive as might appear at first glance. Tomorrow's Irish back line has been training together all week. Any team would miss O'Driscoll's X factor. That said, it is assuaged by the unexpectedly swift return of Shane Horgan, who reverts to the position in which he cut his teeth. He will bring a different dynamic in midfield, more physicality in attack and defence, and a potential target for his team-mates to put Ireland on the front foot.
Meanwhile, Gordon D'Arcy, as potent a runner as any centre right now, might find even more space in the outside channel.
The recalled Geordan Murphy should probably have started last week when; no less than Denis Hickie, he showed in his nine-minute cameo he has the spark to unlock any team.
Nonetheless, the primary reason Ireland won last week was because their set-pieces, by and large, held together. That Olivier Milloud is not starting, given what he did to the Italian scrum, is a mild relief, though these things are relative. With Serge Betsen not looking his vintage best, you would still prefer the Irish back row and outhalf (Ronan O'Gara will welcome his favoured Gilbert ball), but given how France bullied the Azzurri pack, it's a much more formidable French outfit than last autumn.
Recalling how France wore Ireland down in Lansdowne Road two years ago, were Ireland to lack intensity, concede possession the way they did against Wales, and end up playing on the back foot again, a fifth successive defeat to les Bleus beckons.
For some reason of late, Paul O'Connell hasn't been playing to his own inordinately dynamic standards, but if Murrayfield two years ago is a guideline, the captaincy will inspire him. The setpieces, the collisions around the fringes, will be where lines in the sand will be drawn, all the more so with some of the slickness in Ireland's game likely to be dulled.
It would be comforting to have Stringer there, and Isaac Boss needs to replicate the little man's service as best he can, with his sniping an ace-in-the-hole rather than an overplayed card.
No consideration of this game would be complete without factoring in the Croker Effect. Never before have 70,000-plus Irish supporters roared on an Irish rugby team in this country. They've never had the opportunity. And we all remember what happened when similar numbers were in Cardiff last May. The umbilical cord may not be quite the same, but the template has been set.
And the crowd better not blow it. After all the history, the debating, the clamour for tickets, if they cannot sing The Fields they shouldn't be there and need not come again. Nah, it's unthinkable. La Marseillaise will be something, but The Fields will be something else.
And yet if Ireland don't take the game to the French from the off, get their basics right, rediscover their autumn intensity, be accurate at the breakdown, turn the French and maintain pressure through possession or kicking in behind the visitors' counter-attackers, then it won't matter if there are 150,000 there.
Can this Irish team deliver without their talisman and their little warrior? Mais oui!
Overall head-to-head: Played81, Ireland28 wins, 5 draws, France48 wins,
Last five meetings: 2003Ireland won 15-12 in Dublin; 2003: France won 43-21 in Melbourne; 2004: France won 35-17 in Paris; 2005: France won 26-19 in Dublin; 2006: France won 43-31 in Paris.
Betting(Paddy Power): 4/7 Ireland, 22/1 Draw, 13/10 France. Handicap odds (= France +4pts) 10/11 Ireland, 20/1 Draw, 10/11 France.
Forecast: Ireland to win.
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