The Parc des Princes. It will be strange going to a ground I really only associate with childhood memories of Saturday afternoons in the spring and television pictures of a place that seemed a million miles away.

I’ve never been there before but Geordan Murphy tells me it’s a special arena, and really noisy – he played for Leicester here in the 2001 final against Stade Francais. He won too. Will that be a good omen for us? Hopefully.

Not surprisingly, my real reference points are two games played at Thomond Park, where Munster needed big wins to make it out of the pool stages of the European Cup – Gloucester and Sale, special occasions that have both had the word ‘miracle’ attached to them.

People assume Munster went out on those occasions with a game-plan designed specifically towards earning a four-try bonus point but that’s not the way it was. It never is. As Alan Gaffney used to say, you look after the processes first and other things can then fall into place.

The only other comparison to be drawn is that those performances came as a result of collective disappointment at previous performances. We knew we had to set things right. And at the end of a long week, that’s the way we will all be thinking when we get on the bus this afternoon.

Monday, September 24 Back to work. Yesterday myself, Rog, Quinny, Marcus and Wally took a 50-minute spin down to the beach at Arcachon, which was a pleasant escape. Monday morning and we’re back in the weights room, pushing on.

Afternoon training is a bit different in that it’s an open session at Stade Bordelais. Fifteen hundred locals watch us get stuck into each other. Mostly it’s continuity stuff and defence, though we do put some time aside for lineouts. This is my baby and obviously things didn’t go well against the French.

Of the five we lost, two were good defence by the French – Bonnaire is a very good defensive jumper and we needed to keep the ball away from him more – and three were just bad calls by me. I have to hold my hand up there.

Looking back, I could have kept things more simple. I know the backs like ball to the middle and the tail but sometimes we need to remember that the first priority is to win the ball, plain and simple. If that means safe ball at the front, then so be it.

I was watching the South Africans against England on video. They have one of the best lineouts around, yet in the first half they stuck to simple four-plus-ones. You can actually work a lot off that sort of ball. Like, Drico’s try in the first Test against the All Blacks two summers ago came directly off a lob ball to two.

I remember in Paris in 2004, my first game as captain, we got criticised for being conservative for calling our first five balls to the front. That was all that was available at the time so that’s what we went with. What invariably happens is that the opposition reacts by putting numbers up the front, which frees things up other areas. In the evening, it’s Blades of Glory with Will Ferrell. Disappointing but the crack is good. Plenty of banter, which is encouraging. Tuesday The highlight is an evening meal in Peppone, a small Italian restaurant in the middle of Bordeaux. Yes, we’re in France, staying in something of a culinary hotspot and here we are, eating Italian again. Sorry, but I’d feel more comfortable with this. Maybe it’s because the menu is easier to understand than in a French restaurant, where there’s often a good deal of guesswork.

It’s incredible to think that just eight years ago, some Irish players ate McDonalds on the day of a world cup match – which just happened to be against Argentina in Lens. Apparently all that was on offer in the team hotel was very rare beef, swimming in blood, so some of the lads reckoned Big Macs were a safer option.

In Peppone, you know what you’re getting – essentially pizzas or pasta. I actually ate dinner at the team hotel but couldn’t resist coming into town for another bite.

There’s plenty of chat. Word is that Tana Umaga has been having a pop at a couple of us in his autobiography. Brian tells me he’s included bits of their phone conversation that were probably better left out of print. The things people will do to sell a book.

Wednesday We have the afternoon off so four of us – Fla, Bossy, Trimby and myself – head off to see the Quicksilver Pro Surfing tournament in Hossegor. It’s an hour and a half’s drive up the coast but it’s worth it. Why? Because Kelly Slater, eight times world champion and former Baywatch star, is taking part.

When he’s finished doing his tricks, he’s signing autographs and Trimby nearly flattens a few young children in his rush to get to him. Very amusing.

On the way down, I had a good chat with Jerry about what he’s up to outside of rugby – the ins and outs of running a pub and so forth. He’s in the middle of decorating a house at present so I was potholing him about that. On the way back, I found myself talking to Trimby about things as diverse as religious faith and defensive systems. Thursday It’s only this morning that I hear Simon Best has been taken to hospital in Bordeaux. It comes as quite a shock.

Apparently he was just out for a stroll yesterday when he felt pins and needles in his arm and then the left side of his face went numb. He even had difficulty speaking. Luckily he has the best medical attention and as the day goes on, we get increasingly positive updates but it kinda puts everything in perspective. Simon is a really popular squad member, a really decent fella and we hope his recovery is a quick one.

Seeing as we’re coming towards the end of the week, training today was more organisational. Argentina are an entirely different proposition than France so there’s plenty of tweaking to be done.

This will be my third game against them. I really enjoyed playing against them in Adelaide at the last tournament. Everyone talks about it as the most stressful game we’ve ever played, what with the ghost of Lens and all that. I wouldn’t have felt the same pressure as the senior players. I was just thinking about trying to nick lineout balls, hitting as many rucks as possible and so on. I had a piggyback ride, to be honest.

I had a fair bit more responsibility the following year and it was quite a battle again – just the one point separating us thanks to Rog’s brilliant drop goal.

They don’t do anything too fancy but they are extremely awkward opponents. In attack, they do lots of pick-ing-and-jamming, lots of one-out runners, slipping little off-loads in the mauls. They take points when they are on offer.

There’s a lot of method in what they do. Like, people see them kicking all those garryowens against France and assume it’s hit and hope. In fact, there was a system involved, with Manuel Contepomi always challenging for the high ball and his brother Felipe running the show off the breaking ball. Very little happens by accident with them.

It hasn’t escaped our attention that they have yet to concede a try in the tournament, which makes scoring four sound almost outlandish. Nobody gives us a chance, which is no harm.

Friday Good-bye Bordeaux, hello Paris. A beautiful city even when it’s raining, as it was when we arrived by train to Montparnasse this afternoon. I’d love to get to see it properly at some stage. This must be my sixth or seventh trip here and I still haven’t been to the Louvre or up the Eiffel Tower. Always business to attend to. No difference this time. At least we got out for a trip on the Seine in the evening. It was the entire squad. We had a beautiful meal and lovely views of the Tower and Notre Dame.

We also had some woman singing cheesey Lionel Richie songs which had us all in stitches. Rala tried to get up and sing one of his World War One ballads but we were having none of it. He barely got past the first verse.

We got back to the hotel in time to watch England play Tonga, also at the Stade de France. England got a bit of stick from the French media for kicking too much ball but I was actually impressed with some of the things they did.

As they showed against Samoa and South Africa, Tonga aren’t a bad side at all and they played some great rugby in the first half. But England were patient and didn’t get too flustered when the Tongans scored early on. They knew if they bided their time that the opportunities would come. Maybe there’s a lesson for us in there somewhere.

This may have been a disappointing world cup for us so far but it’s been excellent as far as the development of the minnows is concerned. I just hope Georgia don’t play too well against France on Sunday as that could leave us with a real mountain to climb. Saturday Another quiet eve-of-match, watching games from other pools on the box and generally taking it easy. The kickers and a few of the backs are heading down to the stadium this afternoon but I’d prefer to get my feet up. I’ll need all my energy.

This will be a battle. It always is against Argentina.

There’s been a lot of talk about bad blood between us, about how both sides have various motivations. To be honest, we don’t need any more motivation at this stage. There’s already quite enough at stake.