A FAZ ‘BERY RIPPLE

Farrell’s forced to do without skipper but Aki insists Joey will step up and ensure it is just a minor disruption

IRELAND’S mission in Paris is to avoid Le Flop – without the man who produced Le Drop.

Johnny Sexton beat Les Bleus with that famous last-gasp drop-goal four years ago.

For the second year running, he was due to lead Andy Farrell’s side out against France only for injury to scupper best laid plans.

Twelve months ago it was a head injury sustained in the opening loss to Wales – this week it is a hamstring issue that Ireland hope will clear up before the next match against Italy.

Billy Burns replaced Sexton (inset) for the Aviva Stadium clash last February. Making his first Six Nations start, he failed to inspire the hosts and Ireland lost 15-13.

At that time, Joey Carbery was gearing up to make his big comeback for Munster, just over a year on from his last appearance.

Now, due to Sexton’s training ground injury on Wednesday, he too will make his first Six Nations start against Les Bleus.

With the World Cup in mind, it may turn out to be invaluable exposure for Carbery to start in the Stade de France cauldron – where Ireland will return to in 18 months’ time for two pool games and, potentially, a quarter-final.

But tomorrow’s game is a Grand Slam eliminator between the two championship favourites.

So much is at stake.

“Every opportunity you get, you have to be able to take it with two hands and let your performance take care of itself,” said Bundee Aki.

“The World Cup is a long, long way away. There’s a lot of games to be played in between.”

It remains to be seen if Ireland, who were ready to travel with confidence on the back of a nine-game winning streak, will have that same assurance with Munster’s out-half in the driving seat and with Jack

Carty backing him up off the bench.

Carbery and half-back partner Jamison Gibson-park have started together once before, in the 39-31 summer friendly win against Japan.

“Nothing’s changed,” insisted Aki, the Connacht centre. “Johnny’s a big leader and having him travelling, it will be good for us to have him around.

“Training went very well with Joey and Jack, it was seamless.

“We’re looking forward to playing with those two boys and hopefully we can build a little bit more depth into our team and go from there.

“Joey has evolved. He knows what he’s doing. I’m confident we’ll play well together. Joey’s well equipped to run games, he just does his thing and we follow him.

“There are a lot of leaders in our group and we have the ‘Cheese’, James Ryan (captaining the side). So we’ll just do our job and follow them.”