IRELAND’S SUB PAR performance in defeat to England on Saturday was discussed on today’s Rugby Weekly Extra, the podcast for subscribers to The 42. 

Eoin Toolan, the former Ireland analyst, said the defending Six Nations champions played to a level that should not be sufficient to win a game in the competition against a major rival.  

“It is good for the tournament . . . They probably dropped to a six out of 10, and that wasn’t good enough to get it done, which it shouldn’t in a Six Nations. You probably feel the same about Scotland as well, that Ireland will have to perform well to win,” he said.  

Toolan believes there will be a reaction from the home side at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, following the one point loss in Twickenham. 

“I’d say there’ll be an edge to Ireland’s performance this weekend. As I said, there needs to be jeopardy in Six Nations games and absolutely they’ll have to perform well to win,” he said.   

Head coach Andy Farrell faces some interesting selection calls, yet Toolan expects him to give players who underperformed against England the chance to atone against Scotland.   

“I think there will be an urgency to get (Garry) Ringrose into the 23,” he said. 

“Whether they revert to a 5:3, it will depend on how stung they’ve been by the 6:2, obviously it doesn’t pay off with (Calvin) Nash going off after five minutes, it probably highlights the jeopardy of going 6:2. 

“And then there’s definitely competition on the bench with Ryan Baird, Jack Conan. It was one of Caelan Doris’ worst performances, he was definitely outshone by (Ben) Earl which will have stung him so potentially a couple of changes there, but I think Farrell will be loyal enough and give guys that performed out of character an opportunity to right those performances.”     

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