Gordon D’Arcy believes this is the perfect time to play France in the RBS 6 Nations.
Joe Schmidt’s side drew 16-all with Wales at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday, scuppering their chances of a Triple Crown and Grand Slam win.
But a Championship victory is still very much on the cards, with the French in Paris up next on Saturday.
Ireland’s record against Le Bleus, particularly away from home, isn’t great, but D’Arcy believes this might be the best time to take them on.
“It’s very, very open and no one is head and shoulders above anyone,” said the RTE analyst, speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland.
“More than anything else this tournament has actually gotten a lot closer – look at Italy and they were very unlucky not to win in France.
“I will caveat that with France doing just enough when they went behind – they went the length of the field with some power plays and great handling to create some great scores.”
France struggled to see off Italy 23-21 at the Stade de France in what was new head coach Guy Noves’ first game in charge.
“There is no easy game in this tournament anymore, but, for me, France are going to get better week-on-week so it’s probably a good thing that we’re playing them early in the tournament,” said D’Arcy.
“There’s a lot of pressure on them to perform now. I think Guy Noves might have gotten a free pass for the first game, but a lot will be expected of them this week so maybe we can come in under the radar with them with a bit of pressure on their shoulders.”
The former Leinster and international centre was keen to accentuate the positives from the weekend draw with Wales.
Ireland were 13 points clear midway through the first half and though they had to come from behind to earn a draw he feels it was a good result.
“I think that was a great first step for Ireland,” he explained.
“There was a huge amount of injuries with Sean O’Brien pulling out, Rob Kearney pulling out the week of a test match.
“That can be very unsettling and Wales were the out-and-out favourites coming over here. You have to take that into consideration and that was a great first step in the Six Nations for Ireland.
“Unfortunately it ended in a draw and (Welsh lock) Alan Wyn Jones came out and said it didn’t really help anybody, but it’s a good first step for a lot of fellahs who hadn’t played a lot of rugby, CJ (Stander) coming in and so on.
“I just thought everybody played absolutely fantastically well and we attacked with the ball in hand, played a really, really good brand of rugby and I think there are so many positives coming from that.”
