There will be plenty of this over the coming week.
Unfortunately, this Six Nations will not have the dream ending which we all would have hoped for.
Ahead of the tournament, a quick glance at the fixtures immediately drew the eye to St. Patrick’s weekend and a potential championship or Grand Slam decider against England.
Of course, that dream is well and truly buried thanks to Ireland’s away defeats to both Scotland and Wales but thankfully, Ireland against England is a match worth winning in itself, regardless of where Joe Schmidt’s side are in the table.
Ireland will be determined not to complete a second successive championship with only two wins to their name but they will also have the added incentive of stopping England from achieving a historic 19 Test match winning streak.
Ireland will speak all week about how this won’t be a motivating factor for them, that they just want to concentrate on themselves and right the wrongs of previous defeats.
However, it will definitely be talked about within the walls of Carton House and Eddie Jones had no problem in highlighting this fact after their Calcutta Cup trimuph.
“Ireland, psychologically, are in a very strong position,” said Jones to Sky Sports. “They’re beaten, they’re out of the tournament and they love spoiling parties.
“And the party they’d love to spoil the most is the England party. They’ve got an enormous amount of psychological advantage.”
Saying that Ireland has a psychological advantage is typical of Jones. He is already attempting to ramp up the pressure on this Irish side while deflecting attention from his own – a key trait of his tenure with England so far.
Jones then went on to describe his side as “vulnerable”.
We’re not sure if vulnerable is the correct word to describe a team who had just put 61 points on Scotland and who are welcoming back a host of key players but at this stage it is probably safe to say that Jones knows what he’s doing.
