Ireland 'itching' for showdown with Scotland - Dave Kilcoyne

Having been given a few days off the rest the body and soul after last week's energy-sapping win against South Africa, it's a sign of pretty good squad morale that so many of the Ireland team reported back to camp in Tours ahead of schedule.

When the squad broke up on Sunday and went their separate ways, some linked up with family or got away from the World Cup bubble to quieter parts of France, and Stuart McCloskey was even given permission to fly back to Ireland for a short stint on compassionate leave.

Dave Kilcoyne was one of "eight or nine" from the squad who booked an Air BnB in Paris for a couple of days of nice restaurants, good bars and time to unwind.

But such was the high from the 13-8 win against the Springboks, and the desire to make sure their World Cup didn't peak in September, two days was more than enough time to switch off.

"We had a couple of meals together, but even by the Tuesday, we were going to stay down because we had the days off, but lads just wanted to get back down and so we came back, myself and Pete [O'Mahony] got the later train on the Tuesday back to Tours," Kilcoyne says.

At a rough count, this squad have been together in hotels for 12 of the last 15 weeks since meeting up at the start of their pre-season training in June.

Yet, there's no sign of cabin fever.

"It's such a great environment down here," the loosehead (above) adds.

"We have everything we need in the hotel, and full credit to the backroom staff, the set up they have here, our training environment’s unreal, but back there [at the hotel] the work Vinny Hammond has put into our team room, the Ryder Cup is on at the moment and we have TrackMans [golf simulator], every kind of device you could want, so I think lads were just happy to