O’Driscoll & Stringer Out.

Paul O’Connell will lead Ireland onto Croke Park’s famous green sward on Sunday for the historic RBS Six Nations meeting with France (3pm).

O’Connell takes over captaincy from Brian O’Driscoll who was ruled out following a training run today at Croke Park today. O’Driscoll has failed in his efforts to recover from a hamstring injury he picked up in the game against Wales last weekend.

Another one to miss out as a result of injury picked up in that game is Peter Stringer whose damaged finger has forced him to withdraw from the side, his place taken by Isaac Boss.

Ireland: 15 Girvan Dempsey, 14 Geordan Murphy, 13 Shane Horgan, 12 Gordon D’Arcy, 11 Denis Hickie, 10 Ronan O’Gara, 9 Isaac Boss;  Marcus Horan, Rory Best, John Hayes; Donncha O’Callaghan, Paul O’Connell (captain); Simon Easterby, David Wallace, Denis Leamy. Replacements: 16 Jerry Flannery, 17 Simon Best, 18 Mick O’Driscoll, 19 Neil Best, 20 Eoin Reddan, 21 Paddy Wallace, 22 Andrew Trimble.

France: Clément Poitrenaud,  Vincent Clerc, David Marty,  Yannick Jauzion, Christophe Dominici,  David Skréla,  Pierre Mignoni; Sylvain Marconnet. Raphaël Ibañez (captain), Pieter de Villiers, Pascal Papé, Lionel Nallet, Serge Betsen, Imañol Harinordoquy, Sebastian Chabal. Replacements: 16 Yannick Bru, 17 Olivier Milloud, 18 Jérôme Thion, 19 Julien Bonnaire, 20 Dimitri Yachvili, 21 Lionel Beauxis, 22 Cédric Heymans.

Referee: Steve Walsh (New Zealand)
Touch judges: Kelvin Deaker (New Zealand), Malcolm Changleng (Scotland)
Television match official: Peter Allan (Scotland)