PAUL O’CONNEL IS bracing himself for a seismic clash against England at Twickenham tomorrow.
The last time these two sides met at England HQ, Stuart Lancaster’s troops edged a colossal battle 13-10 during the 2014 Six Nations championship.
Following a close first half, Ireland established a 10-3 lead after the break thanks to a trademark Joe Schmidt attacking move with Rob Kearney scything through for a well-worked score. But England then came roaring back as Mike Brown raced onto Chris Robshaw’s offload before the Harlequins full back released the onrushing Danny Care for a sublime try. The home side never looked back after that as Ireland’s Grand Slam bid was halted in London.
“It’s always an incredibly tough game against England,” said O’Connell following his side’s captain’s run at Twickenham this afternoon. “It’s a very tough place to go; the last time we were here we had a bitterly disappointing defeat. I thought we had the game in control after about 50 minutes but England showed their experience and their mental strength similar to what they showed (in their victory against Wales) at the Millennium Stadium earlier this year.
“They came back and scored a great try and closed out the game well to beat us. England at Twickenham, for every team, is a brilliant game to be part. It doesn’t matter what English team you play, there’s always massive physicality; it’s a big go-to for them, so… it’s going to be incredibly tough.”
The English pack were battered by France in Paris a fortnight ago with the likes of Rabah Slimani, Yoann Maestri and Bernard Le Roux overwhelming the stunned visitors with their physicality at the breakdown.
In front of a raucous, capacity crowd at Twickenham, O’Connell is gearing up for a backlash from the wounded hosts.
“I think every team has days like that no matter how good you are,’ said the Munster lock on England’s 25-20 defeat at the Stade de France.
“It’s rare, if ever, you’ve seen that happen to an English team in the last few years under Lancaster so, we’ve no doubt how pumped up they will be for the physical aspect of the game given what happened in Paris. I think it’s a slightly different team now as well. Geoff Parling and Tom Wood are two very good lineout options as well.
“I’ve no doubt they’ll be eager to reply to the physicality of that performance in Paris.”
Ireland themselves are looking to bounce back following their frustrating 16-10 loss to the Welsh last weekend. O’Connell and Co will be seeking to deliver a far more cohesive attacking display against the English while also improving their discipline which cost them dearly against Warren Gatland’s side last time out.
“There’s certain things we need to do in order to play well. We’ve been quite successful over the last few years when we’ve stuck to a few principles that we have and worked really hard at them and managed to produce them on the big days, and we didn’t do that last week.
‘There was a number of things we’d like to do better. Probably things we brought in from the Scotland game which we would have liked to have done better in that game as well. We’ll be eager to correct that balance; if we can do that… I think we’ll get good performance.
“We were disappointed with the penalty count last week. For every team at international rugby now, it’s a bit emphasis on discipline. I suppose we gave ourselves a big mountain to climb last week from that regards, it’s something that we never do really so that’s one major aspect.
“Some of the ruck ball was pretty slow as well. Every teams has similar principle, we all have different ways of doing them but I think ruck ball in the past has been very good and I think Wales were good at slowing down the ball last week so… if we want a good way to addressing those two things, I think it will lead to a much-improved performance from us.
Dark horses
O’Connell is gearing up for his fourth World Cup in the coming weeks. Ireland have been installed by many as the tournament dark horses but the ever pragmatic Irish captain was refusing to look beyond Saturday’s Test.
“I’d love to win a World Cup but it’s a long, long way away now,” O’Connell added. “And I’ll tell you, the Monday morning after the Wales game, when we reviewed it, it felt a long, long way away as well.
“For me I don’t think there’s any value in me or us getting distracted by that. I think the week after you lose, you wonder almost why you’re playing anymore, and Monday was tough.
“After the Scotland game I thought we were going to put a whole lot of things right, unfortunately we didn’t and you just find out a lot about how far you have to go.
“So we need to get those things right this weekend and start building now, so winning the World Cup, it would be great but it’s very much not at the forefront of my mind.”
