Johnny Sexton gets the green light to feature in ‘scary’ Six Nations French test

The captain came off with a dead leg in Saturday’s win over Wales and underwent a Head Injury Assessment at the behest of the match-day doctor.

That meant he had subsequent assessments on Sunday and Monday, but was cleared to train with the team at their Abbotstown base yesterday.

Andy Farrell’s side are dismissing talk of the round two clash with France as an early Grand Slam decider as the world’s top two sides go head to head in the Six Nations for the first time.

While Ireland enjoyed a 34-10 win in Wales, Saturday’s visitors started in less convincing fashion with a stuttering 29-24 success away to Italy.

Ireland are targeting a record 13th home win in a row, but James Lowe warned that they’ll need to be at their best to down Fabien Galthie’s men.

“Jesus ... not really, no,” the Leinster winger said of the idea that this is a title decider.

“It’s the second game of a Six Nations. I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, and I’m sure they’ll be saying the same things. It’s the old cliché, one game at a time, and we’ll take it like that.

“They’re a world-class side, they’ve shown it for a good couple of years. Their nine-ten combo is pretty scary, their back-row is world-class, a midfield that’s pretty dangerous and a back three that would put the shovers up most teams.

“Individually they’ve got some pretty good firepower, so hopefully they don’t string it all together.

“It’s a whole new beast around the corner. Fortunately, we’re playing France at home, and a lot of those 50:50 calls will hopefully go our way, but we know if we get across our own detail we can hopefully do a job.”