Rory Best

renews acquaintances with old foe

Dylan Hartley

next Saturday, and bearing in mind how

England

extracted such huge psychological and tangible advantages from their scrum dominance in this corresponding fixture two years ago, it’s fair to say that the front-row battle will be critical to this pivotal fixture.

England won 30-9 that day, with 27 of their points emanating in one form or another from the huge problems they inflicted on the Irish scrum, both before but especially after Mike Ross was forced from the field after 35 minutes.

If Ireland hold their own or better, it will deny England a crucial platform from which to establish supremacy. Alternatively, if England begin to inch forward, it will inject the home team and crowd alike with huge energy.

“The scrum is like any aspect of the game, it’s about momentum,” said Best yesterday when recalling the events of two years ago. “England started the game really well, put pressure on us and when you’re going backwards at the start, no matter what you do to change it, the referee has already got a perception that England, in that case, were stronger and we struggled to stop that.”

Best also absolved Tom Court, compelled to revert to tight-head that day as a replacement for Ross, all the blame, stressing the collective nature of scrimmaging and that “the whole scrum disintegrated at times” that day. While this will be the same Irish starting front-row again, they have since become the most capped front row combination in the championship’s history, and there’s been the advent of two specialist props on the bench as well as the emergence of Marty Moore and Jack McGrath.

Furthermore, Dan Cole (heretofore a regular under Stuart Lancaster save for his stint with the Lions) has now joined Alex Corbisiero on the sidelines for the remainder of the Six Nations, leaving only Hartley of the English front-row from two years ago.

Extensive rap sheet
Hartley has an extensive rap sheet, and run-ins with Irish players are a common theme of his various indiscretions. In 2007 he was banned for 26 weeks for gouging three Wasps players, including Johnny O'Connor. In March 2012 he was banned for eight weeks for biting Stephen Ferris. Later, in December of that year, Hartley was banned for two weeks for elbowing Best in the head during Ulster's Heineken Cup win over Northampton in Franklin's Gardens.

Last May he was given an 11-week ban for verbally abusing referee Wayne Barnes in the Premiership final and as a result of this Best was called in as a late replacement to the Lions squad, but is now the English team's most capped player and hit all 20 of his line-out throws in Murrayfield.

'A great guy'
"He has got this name as being, sort of, not that nice a fella but off the pitch he's a great guy," said Best. "On the pitch he's a competitor and he'll do anything in his power to make sure his team don't lose and in the past that has boiled over a little bit. But certainly this year you take your hat off to him. He's come back stronger than ever, he's playing a very hard, physical game. We've always got on pretty well."

That the scrum has been re-empowered, as such, to become such a significant aspect of the game again is something Best, a former prop, welcomes. “It’s the one area of the game where you’re head to head with your opposite number. It’s a really physical battle, and it’s a battle of strength but also of will, a mental battle. It’s great that the scrum has come back in vogue again. You ask any front-row and they’ll tell you if you scrum well, you finish well on the scoreboard. If you ask anyone with numbers four to 15, they would completely disagree with you.”

Best points out that aside from this being Ireland’s first away game of the tournament, with the additional travelling and unfamiliarity which comes with that, it is also England’s first home game. Furthermore, there was more of a familiarity with and predictability about Wales; less so England. “Knowing and being able to deal with it are two different things but we knew what to expect a bit more from them but with England, they change a lot more. They are very versatile, they have a very young team, a very exciting team from an English point of view.”

Donnacha Ryan and David Kilcoyne were added to a 33-man squad yesterday, in the absence of Dan Tuohy, Darren Cave (lower abdominal soreness), Luke Fitzgerald (abdominal muscle injury) and Robin Copeland, who was not included because he would have to return to Cardiff today anyway under IRB Regulation 9.

Isaac Boss suffered concussion for Leinster against the Dragons last Saturday but is observing return to play protocols and should, according to manager Mick Kearney, be in contention for Saturday’s game along with the fit-again Eoin Reddan.