In the press conference following England Rugby’s Team Run Graham Rowntree openly stated that ‘the World Cup starts tomorrow’ and he is right. England’s Forwards Coach is never shy about speaking his mind and explicitly stating this highlights, again, the magnitude of this match against Ireland. In spite of England’s pack looking distinctly off colour recently Rowntree isn’t pushing the panic button just yet;
“As I said last week we’ve not been the worst pack in the World for the last couple of years, as a coach you want to look at performances and not get hysterical about what has been said and understand what we have done against good opposition in the last couple of years. I’ve told the lads that this, this week… there are elements of our game that have got to be better but there always are and we’ve looked at that and corrected them and tomorrow it is important to deliver.”
An area of great focus has been England’s lineout and an individual that has received a lot of criticism in the past few months is Tom Youngs. There is perception that hangs across social media in particular that Tom is not up to the task, something that Graham Rowntree unequivocally believes is incorrect. The statistics tell you that England’s lineout percentage against France wasn’t glowing however in Rowntree’s mind that cannot be focused on Youngs alone;
“I’ve seen criticism of us as a pack and rightly so. You can’t pinpoint the blame on one person because it is not all down to the throwing in terms of those few lineouts that went astray, as I say there are a lot of moving parts in a modern lineout. You layer on top of that a very athletic defence and it is hard work. No, I would never pinpoint all of the blame on one person, never. Tom has been exceptional for us, his performance, a British and Irish Lion and I’m delighted to see him start tomorrow, looking forward to seeing him start at Twickenham and playing with his brother. I’m a big Tom Youngs fan, what he brings to the group, on and off the field is indescribable really.”
England trained hard throughout both of their previous fixtures and didn’t ease off heading into the Test matches as would usually be the case. This is something that many sides choose to do in order to ensure that they peak at the right time however as we have seen it does impact on performance levels. At Twickenham and in Paris England ran out with what Graham called ‘an element of fatigue’ however this will not be the case against Ireland;
“Last week was a tough week all around for everyone for many reasons but they have trained exceptionally well this week and we’ve tapered down nicely. As I said to you previously it was important to train through the last two games but we have tapered well this week and we are ready. We’ve had a good team run, we are ready for another full on game, another full on warm up game because essentially our World Cup starts tomorrow.”
When you review the starting personnel for this Test Match there are almighty head to heads all over the park. The front row tussle between the aforementioned Tom Youngs and Rory Best will be tumultuous, the thunderous prospect of Ben Morgan and Jamie Heaslip clashing at 8 and of course the critical lineout dual off between Geoff Parling and Paul O’Connell are all mesmerising. I have absolutely no doubt that this Test Match will be the most intense that we have seen between these two nations and as I have stated before for England, it is quite simply a must win match.
England: 15 Mike Brown 14 Anthony Watson 13 Jonathan Joseph 12 Brad Barritt 11 Jonny May 10 George Ford 9 Ben Youngs 2 Tom Youngs 3 Dan Cole 4 Courtney Lawes 5 Geoff Parling 6 Tom Wood 7 Chris Robshaw (C) 8 Ben Morgan Replacements: 16 Jamie George 17 Mako Vunipola 18 Kieran Brookes 19 Joe Launchbury 20 Billy Vunipola 21 Richard Wigglesworth 22 Owen Farrell 23 Sam Burgess
Ireland: 15 Simon Zebo 14 Tommy Bowe 13 Jared Payne 12 Robbie Henshaw 11 Dave Kearney 10 Jonathan Sexton 9 Conor Murray 1 Jack McGrath 2 Rory Best 3 Mike Ross 4 Devin Toner 5 Paul O'Connell (C) 6 Peter O’Mahony 7 Sean O’Brien 8 Jamie Heaslip Replacements: 16 Richardt Strauss 17 Tadhg Furlong 18 Nathan White 19 Donnacha Ryan 20 Chris Henry 21 Eoin Reddan 22 Ian Madigan 23 Darren Cave
