SPORTSPORT Monthly Certified Distribution To Come Published by Fortunegreen Ltd, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Dublin 4 Printed by The Irish Times at Citywest in Dublin Editorial: (01) 637 5900 Advertising: (01) 637 5989 Classified: (01) 637 5979 Distribution: (01) 637 5901 24 sport Monday, February 8, 2010 D Well iron out kinks for France DArcy Gordon dArcy expects to see a sting in training this week following Saturdays unconvincing start to Irelands rBS 6 nations title defence. The Grand Slam champions toiled to a 29-11 victory over wooden spoon favourites Italy after losing all cohesion in an abysmal second half at croke Park. Tries from Jamie Heaslip and Tomas oLeary, with ronan oGara kicking 16 points, failed to gloss over a frustrating afternoon. Irelands championship continues against favourites France in Paris this weekend and dArcy insists his team-mates will be determined to address any shortcomings. My own opinion is that there is 20 or 30 per cent improvement to come from us. Everyone knows it, said the Leinster centre. That could be the sting in the back of our minds when we start training tomorrow. Wed have liked to have scored, five, six or seven tries. We were capable of doing that but we didnt so from that point of view we are a little bit frustrated. We have our goals and standards. We didnt live up to all of them against Italy but thats for us to figure out. We dont need to reinvent the wheel, small changes will help put things right. Room to improve P21 Dubs end 28-year wait for victory in Kingdom P20 Chelsea shot back to the top of the Premier League yesterday thanks to a convincing 2-0 victory over title rivals Arsenal at Stamford Bridge. Striker Didier Drogba (pictured) continued his lethal form, netting both goals in the first half Report P22 Blues reclaim top spot Picture:ActionImages Spirit of Paris will spur us to 2012: Trap By Eddie ClearyGIovAnnI TrAPATTonI believes the spirit and character shown in last novembers crushing World Cup play- off defeat in Paris can get Ireland to the finals of Euro 2012. Placed in a far from daunting Group B with russia, Slovakia, Macedonia, Armenia and Andorra, ex- pectations will be high among fans that Ireland will make Poland/Ukraine. And boss Trapattoni ap- peared quietly confident as well following the draw in Warsaw yesterday. Its not bad. Its possible to achieve qualification, said Trapattoni. Before the games, none is easy or difficult. All the groups have equal balance. Two teams are hard, russia and Slovakia, because they are strong teams. But we have shown in the past that we can play against every team like Italy and France. If we start the qualification with the same mentality we had against France then we have a good chance to qualify. [Paris] is gone. In football its important to forget im- mediately the disappoint- ments. We must start again, but what we did in the past is very important. When we believe in what we can do we can achieve any result. I will begin to concentrate on the next opponent in the future, but I know the famous players, the russians and the others. Its not that important now. We have five or six months before the first game. Irelands Eastern promise P23 Russia Slovakia Rep. of Ireland FYR Macedonia Armenia Andorra IRELANDS GROUP index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html24.html25.html26.html27.html