England awaits as ‘scummy’ Ireland swoop on Twickenham

Only the result will be remembered. Nothing else matters. Not the “scummy Irish” comment, not replacing a South African touch judge with someone from a “little shit place that has got three million people”. Nope, doesn’t matter when the game begins, nor during, nor after.

England are undefeated at Twickenham since Michael Cheika’s Wallabies raided the joint during the 2015 World Cup. The recovery may have stalled but Eddie Jones has overseen 15 victories in a stadium Ireland seek to conquer on St Patrick’s Day, all in search of rugby’s holiest of holies.a

Seeking what England could not find in Dublin last year – what could possibly go wrong?

“Ireland are coming motivated by a grand slam,” said Dylan Hartley, the ideal evil villain as England captain. “They don’t need anymore help. I’ve been in that camp. I know how that feels like.

Wales take calculated risk against France in final Six Nations match

---

Grand Slam memories: ‘Cardiff turned green that day’

---

England v Ireland: Best ready to lead from the front

---

Seymour and Gray back to bolster experienced Scotland

---

“We want to finish the tournament strong.”

Irish hope is English heads continue scratching over smashed breakdowns; that they fail to understand whatever riddle Marius van der Westhuizen was rhyming on their Pennyhill paddock last Tuesday.

The South African is stood down, replaced by Nigel Owens as World Rugby blunder into the last round of the 2018 Six Nations.

“By working hard,” offered England scrum coach Neal Hatley when asked about repeated failure to secure vital possession in Murrayfield and Paris. “We’ve talked about it for two weeks. We know it’s an area we have to improve in. The way we carry the ball, the way we change our speed to get to the breakdown – we have looked at all those factors.”

Technical failing

On the presumption that professionals always work hard, there is a technical failing, right?

“Each breakdown is so fluid. Some will be technical, some will be an energy issue, each one changes. I wouldn’t want to say it’s all technical or it’s all attitude. France had a lot of men tackling in twos and threes, other sides don’t. It’s about the decision-making.”

Van der Weisthuizen’s tutorial remains an important lesson but no one, seemingly, compares to Joe Schmidt in this regard.

Maybe Eddie Jones wants it this way. Maybe it’s a ruse to heap pressure on match referee Angus Gardner, whose interpretation of early rucks – whistling for or against England – will guide the game’s flow.

“It’s irrelevant really,” said Hatley. “We got to pick up on [what  Gardner does] in the first five, 10 minutes and adjust to it.”

If it’s so irrelevant, why did England insist on a southern hemisphere referee coming into camp this week?

“I think adaption is important . . . we went through World Rugby and they made a decision not to have Marius on the touch line so we will deal with whatever happens on the day. Again, the change is irrelevant.”

Messy official change

This messy official change matters as much as Eddie Jones slagging Irish people at a corporate event. Some jokes, while perhaps funny at the time, fail to travel into Test weeks when you’re the England coach.

"I'm not that smart, I'm an Australian, I'm a convict, mate," was how Jones batted away the "Sexton's parents" remark in 2016 because he knew all that mattered, in the end, was England won. Twickenham leaned heavy on the smattering of silenced Irish (many, many more are coming this time). Grim will never describe the feeling of losing in the RFU's cavernous home as Swing Low reverberates.

What does matter is the collisions – Bundee Aki against Ben Te’o, the outhalf duel, Johnny Sexton against Owen Farrell, finally wearing 10 – and which team dominates the breakdown.

That always matters.