SIX NATIONS NEWS:DECLAN KIDNEY is expected to stick with the same selection which he had decided upon for the trek to Paris at lunchtime today as Ireland return to the comforts of home against Italy next Saturday. The only problem being that the Aviva Stadium hasn't exactly been very comforting.

In nine games at the rebuilt Lansdowne Road, Ireland have, rather remarkably, lost six of them, and on Saturday will be seeking to avoid a fourth successive home defeat for the first time since 1997, the same year Ireland last lost to Italy. Not alone are Ireland in something of a no-win position against opponents whom they have beaten 16 times in a row, but a 1.30pm kick-off (the BBC/Six Nations library slot) for the visit of the Azzurri is hardly conducive to making the ground a heaving bearpit.

Nevertheless, the Parisian farce does, at face value, afford Ireland a better opportunity of avoiding back-to-back opening losses and one of the prime beneficiaries of an additional fortnight’s rest should be Jonathan Sexton.

Contrary to the official line a day before the scheduled Paris game, when Paddy Wallace was flown out as cover, Sexton tightened a groin in kicking practice the Wednesday beforehand.

He didn’t practice his kicking on the Thursday, the day the team was announced, and it was still bothering him the day before the game.

Sexton was out on the freezing Stade de France pitch 10 minutes before the other kickers for a fitness test, but maintains: “I was confident I could play though.”

The thought occurred that maybe the slight injury had been bothering him in the Welsh game – such as when his 55-metre penalty in the 75th minute against Wales fell short – but he says this was not the case.

Asked to revisit that decision yesterday, Sexton said: “You can look at it two ways: if we didn’t take it on maybe everyone would have said you should have.

“I was kicking them from there in the warm-up, it was in my range so we decided we would have a go. It would have put us nine points clear, they would have had to score twice, so I thought it was the right decision. We miss, we get the ball back in exactly the same position we were in and we get to try and keep the ball again,” he said, which is particularly valid, as Paul O’Connell claimed the ensuing Welsh restart just outside the visitors’ 22 – which probably would have been similar to any lineout had they gone up the line – only to concede a turnover penalty off the next phase when Seán O’Brien took the ball into contact.

“Everything is easy to look at in hindsight or when you’re sitting in the stand, but at the time we felt it was the right decision. Maybe late in the game it wasn’t the easiest kick after playing 70 minutes of high-intensity rugby from my own perspective, but from a team perspective it was the right decision.”

Reflecting on that game with this Saturday in mind, Sexton admitted candidly: “There’s a lot of areas Ireland need to improve upon. The breakdown, including the backs. At certain times in the game, we need to be a little more clever at what we’re doing.

“We played the majority of the Welsh game off turnover ball. Any time we got the ball was after a prolonged period of them having it, and that’s tough. I don’t think we had too many set-pieces in the game.

“We’re judging this Irish team after one game. That’s our first game of the championship. We were a couple of minutes away from winning it.

“We do have a lot of things to work on, but that’s expected. It’s coming together and we’ve only been together for one game.”

Sexton’s only outing since turning his ankle against Glasgow on January 15th was the Welsh game, but he is fully confident rustiness won’t be an issue and, as a back, quite likes the idea of a schedule which now pits Ireland into four successive games – though he acknowledges that it is a tougher schedule for forwards.

To Sexton’s way of thinking, the primary difference between the last gasp 13-11 win in Rome last year (courtesy of a late drop goal by some bloke called O’Gara) and the handsome 36-6 win in Dunedin at the World Cup was that Ireland were more clinical in Dunedin, whereas they had butchered five or six try-scoring chances in the Stadio Flaminio.

The Azzurri have since taken on a new coach, Jacques Brunel, in losing to France and England. “Judging by their first two performances, it’s exactly what you expect from Italians sides, physical and dogged,” said Sexton.

“Under the new coach, they’re trying to play a little more. They still kick it a bit and we’ll have to make good decisions when they do kick it. It’s going to be tough, definitely. England had a really tough day at the office and even France only broke the deadlock after about 50 minutes or so.”