SIDELINE CUT:As Eddie O'Sullivan leads his depleted army on England's daunting fortress let's screw our courage to the sticking place - for there will always be an Ireland, writes Keith Duggan

SO ON to Fortress Twickenham, where England and Ireland will close their Six Nations campaigns in a match that ought to be titled the Disillusionment Cup. Is Twickenham, that cold beast of a stadium, to be remembered as the place where Eddie O'Sullivan fought his last stand? The knives have been out for quite some time but both O'Sullivan and England's Brian Ashton could be forgiven for thinking they are about to become the star players in a modern-day Shakespearean bloodbath.

For all the unconfined joy among the Irish and the English throwing trilbys in the air in Cheltenham, there has been little but gloom emanating from the rugby camps this week.

A generation of Englishmen became instantly middle-aged with the news Jonny Wilkinson had been dropped from the starting line-up. The gentle demotion of Wilkinson must have caused ripples of keen regret across provincial England, the end of a minor but trustworthy era, like the passing of the dear old queen mum or the final episode of Only Fools and Horses. Englanders can look at Jonny, sigh and agree that they don't make them like they used to.

Wilkinson is only 28 and at his best he made his compatriots feel invincible, tapping over penalties and drop-goals like a rugby version of Alan Shearer, reliable and uncomplicated and, for all the ferocity of his tackles, never so much as a golden hair out of place.

He always played older than his years and though he spent most of his mid-20s, years when he ought to have been at his peak, fighting the ailments of a physique almost battered into submission by the violence of the game, his autumnal burst for glory at last year's World Cup in France cemented his place in the affections of his nation.

In this country, there has been similar dismay over the poster boy of Ireland's golden generation, Brian O'Driscoll. The memory of O'Driscoll's fabulous Parisian hat-trick and the weird, triangular hand signals that accompanied his celebrations do seem like a long time ago now. But it was as if Warren Gatland's provocative observation that the centre no longer had the blistering burst of speed of that glorious first coming has been accepted as absolute and irreversible fact.

It seems highly unlikely "Gatty" stood over O'Driscoll with his stopwatch putting the player through his 20-, 50- and 100-metre dashes any time recently. It may well be O'Driscoll is posting slightly slower sprint times at training, but even so, he is no slouch.

It seems to have been quickly forgotten he was named Six Nations "player of the tournament" for the past two years. He was probably Ireland's best player on a team that misfired throughout the World Cup, a loss of form that must have been bitterly disappointing to him as captain. And it seemed that he was involved in most of the brightest sequences of Ireland's current campaign. And whatever about quick feet, he displayed sublime hands in one stretching, touch pass under pressure, a fleeting moment of genius as good as the celebrated "pass to himself" against Ulster or the memorable one-handed try as he slid over the French end line in 2003.

Who knows why he isn't scoring more tries right now? Perhaps it is because he is the most closely marked man on whatever field he steps onto. Maybe it is because he has become so absorbed in the bread-and-butter duties of tackling and scrapping for ball and covering that he doesn't have time to eye those slivers of daylight he used to exploit with such thrilling ease. And maybe, maybe, it is as his old boss Gatland contended, and he does not have the zoom to move through the narrowest of them before they disappear. Only O'Driscoll and those playing with him know the truth.

The Irish captain, sitting bandaged and disconsolate as the Welsh took ownership of the day in Croke Park a week ago, provided a vivid picture of how badly things appear to have gone wrong for Irish rugby. And yet Ireland came literally within inches of beating France in Paris. And although Wales might have run in three or four tries last weekend, they did not, and had Ireland had more composure and smarts, they might have stolen that one too. Even in these apparently bleak days, this Irish team has not been so far away.

But this year's contest against the oldest enemy carries with it some of the traditional foreboding of generations past, when Irish teams and supporters fought causes that were doomed long before the whistle start. It can be a belligerent old ground, Twickenham, when the English are in the mood and have their tails up, with the ominous bass chorus of Swing Low and the spirit of Henry V's St Crispin's Day speech ringing through the bloody-minded soldiering spirit of men like Beaumont or Dooley or Winterbottom or Johnson, elemental types who would look as comfortable in a coat of chainmail as in the snow-white shirt of England.

It is not so terribly long ago that the men in green shirts were little more than fodder for the Twickenham crowd. When O'Sullivan took his first team to the stadium in 2002, Ireland lost 45-11. Geordan Murphy and David Wallace are the only two survivors from that day to start this afternoon.

Since then, there been have two famous triumphs in a row for the Irish, a feat not achieved since the wholeheartedly amateur days of the early 1970s.

Ireland have fallen out of fashion and down the world rankings dramatically in the last few months and for all the similar disenchantment in the English camp, they go into Twickenham facing a home team who made it to the World Cup final.

So it is back to the classic role of underdogs for Ireland, backs against the wall and all that.

This is a day to invoke the ghost of Simon Geoghegan and that unforgettably brilliant and arrogant try against England in 1994, a victory that resonated across the Irish enclaves of London in a way that went deeper than sport. It was one for Paddy, one in the face of the establishment.

Ireland had not won in Twickenham for a full decade before Geoghegan dashed over the try line that year. That state of affairs may well come to pass again. We may all be a lot older by the time O'Sullivan's record of coaching Irish teams to consecutive victories in London is equalled or bettered.

He won't be remembered as the most charismatic coach but it ought not to be forgotten, as O'Sullivan fights this afternoon to keep his job, he was at the helm on days when Ireland flew in the face of tradition.

As the Jam used to sing, the public gets what the public wants, and soon there will probably be a new Ireland coach.

So if this is to be O'Sullivan's last stand, here's hoping his team have a go, the fliers run their socks off and, in the best showbiz tradition, he sends them home smiling. And let the boys all shout for tomorrow.