When opportunity presents itself, Ireland have to grab it. Saturday night in the Stade de France is one of those nights. This would be a significant win and the real send-off for you know who.

We’ll never meet France at a better time, for they are treading water and playing most un-French like. Lucky to beat Scotland on Saturday, they seem to have thrown in the towel in this Six Nations. So if we can impose ourselves early in this game, I can’t see them summoning anything.

The most obvious danger is the French throwing off the shackles and expressing themselves. They are always capable of this at home, but if we can quieten the crowd, the team will follow. We clearly do this by playing a most structured game that doesn’t allow for flair to flourish.

Jonathan Sexton is the key man. Along with the back three, he must kick smartly on Saturday. This means finding his touch and keeping Ireland in set-piece mode. Lineouts and scrums are where we are strongest and France loose. If we don’t invite them to run at us from deep, they look incapable of opening us up from set-piece attacks, something they have failed to do all season long.

Then there is the O’Driscoll factor. The Italian farewell must have drained him mentally before the game as he looked fairly shattered when he came off after an hour at the Aviva. We can only imagine what a week our most iconic player ever has had. This week, however, should be different. By Thursday he will be in the match bubble and, hopefully, we can get more than an hour out of him because he looked back to his creative best and that’s something we have lacked this championship.

Being Brian O’Driscoll, we can expect him to go out on a high and put in a telling performance. It’s his way, it’s always been his way. The more important the game, the more we see of him. The schedule of this Six Nations has worked out perfectly for Ireland. A soft enough start at home, a week off before England and then Italy to warm us up for the finale. And in the middle of all that, Brian’s goodbye is a game we were always going to win. Perfect.

So now we just have to finish it off. Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony must return, and this will allow Iain Henderson to return to the bench where he can be a second-row replacement, where he could be needed.

Joe Schmidt had a couple of options for this game, but his decision to allow Tommy Bowe to return to Ulster for a game this weekend is an unusual one and robs him of one viable alternative for the back three. We don’t get too many chances to win this tournament and Bowe trained with Ireland the week of the Italian match, so he either didn’t impress with his fitness for the week or Schmidt is staying loyal to Trimble and Kearney Junior on the wings, with McFadden on the bench.

Another puzzler is the omission of Donncha Ryan from the match day 23 last weekend. If ever there was a game that would have suited his comeback, then the last 20 of this one was it. Instead, Paul O’Connell and Devon Toner were left on the field for the 80 minutes and O’Connell’s powers of recuperation will be tested.

Simon Zebo is another that is a casualty of Schmidt’s lack of squad rotation this tournament. While Trimble and Kearney have peformed adequately, McFadden too, Zebo and Bowe are proven Lions. Perhaps they aren’t Schmidt’s type of player?

Regardless, they probably won’t be seen in a green jersey until possibly the summer tour of Argentina, and that is Schmidt’s call, one he is entitled to make as coach. However, if it all goes wrong on Saturday night, the scribes won’t be long attacking his promotion of Jordi Murphy and Rhys Ruddock into the match-day squad as well. Such is the way of the sword, and there is no doubting Schmidt’s bravery living by it.

Fergus McFadden can look forward to another standing ovation on Saturday night when he probably comes on to replace the great one. Hopefully by then, the job is done and the French get a chance to acclaim our best ever player in a green jersey.

The French are like that. They will rise as one to recognise his passing, for they know greatness when it is in their midst. In Jean Pierre Rives and Serge Blanco they had it. They don’t have it now.

So this is what it all comes down to. Ireland with a championship on the line, O’Driscoll with the last few lines to write. It was on this ground back in 2000 that he burst on to international consciousness with three startling tries. Ireland won that game with the stars of a previous generation. Keith Wood, Ronan O’Gara, David Humphries, David Wallace, Peter Stringer, Anthony Foley and Rob Henderson beside him in the centre, have all come and gone, O’Driscoll has endured.

While Reeling in the Years will concentrate on those three tries when he sped past a bewildered Emile N’Tmack, the real genius and leadership of Brian O’Driscoll was best personified by something he did early in the match.

France, as is their wont at home, had started like a house on fire, running the ball and swarming all over us. We were hanging on by our finger tips with one French try disallowed for a forward pass, it seemed the floodgates might open. A rushed Irish clearing kick came to Philip Bernat-Salles, a lovely graceful Gallic winger. He opened his shoulders and was picking his gap in the Irish cover to breeze through when he was run over. Quite literally. He didn’t see it coming, O’Driscoll came on his right shoulder from nowhere and he was floored, the ball spilt. It was a thunderous effort, one of those hits that has spectators wincing.

The message that tackle sent to France and to his own team mates said everything about Brian O’Driscoll. It’s the last time we beat France in Paris and it all started with that tackle. How fitting that this is where this chapter of his life will end. In glory. Proper order.