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Arrogant Ireland cheerleaders brought down to earth with a slap
By Neil Fissler
It is unbelievable to think that after one swing of Marcus Smith’s right foot, England can be crowned Six Nations Champions in Lyon next Saturday night, especially given all of the negativity surrounding Steve Borthwick, his team selections, tactics, performances and the overall state of the game in the country.
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A bonus-point win over France and a victory earlier in the afternoon for Scotland in Ireland could see Borthwick’s side pull off one of the most unlikely Championship wins in recent years. This is all the more remarkable, considering how deep they needed to dig in the second half to see off Italy by the narrowest of margins in their opening game.
Another second-half comeback was needed to beat a youthful Wales team in their second game, but the knives for Borthwick and his side well and truly came out when Duhan van der Merwe’s hat-trick saw Scotland claim a fourth successive Calcutta Cup victory.
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England were the architects of their own downfall at Murrayfield after making 24 handling errors and turning the ball over 22 times, and it seemed that Ireland only had to turn up in South-West London to continue their march towards becoming the first team since England in 1992 to secure a second successive Grand Slam.
It was certainly the case for the Irish media, who have been claiming for over a month that Andy Farrell’s side are without equal in Europe and were going to coast through to the Grand Slam with the breathtaking air of arrogance that they have so often levelled at England and their fans down the years.
And then you have the talking heads; former players saying silly things in the media in return for a payday. Peter Stringer, who clearly needs to give his head a wobble after claiming no England player gets into the Ireland team, or Jamie Heaslip proclaiming Ireland would need to go down 13 or 14 men for England to win. Talk about getting ahead of yourself.
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But probably the worst piece of cheerleading of the lot was Simon Zebo’s ridiculous prediction that Ireland would win by 35 points. Did he honestly believe that, or was the former prankster of the Irish camp just singing for his supper? If he believed that, then the men in white coats will be around shortly.
You ok @SimonZebo?! 35 points?! @BoyleSports 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/o9vQccXdtM
— Andy Goode (@AndyGoode10) March 9, 2024
Maybe Borthwick, instead of giving a Churchillian-style pre-match address to his troops could have just read out a choice selection of the nonsense coming from across the Irish Sea. Then again, Farrell’s team might just have read what was being said and started to believe their own publicity.
For the first 35 minutes, they were given what is known in south-east London as a proper slap, but Ireland, to their credit, kept the scoreboard ticking over, as all good teams do. England were more direct and decisive – and had they been more clinical and not missed a couple of penalties – would have been comfortably ahead.
The second half was equally enthralling, swinging one way and then another before Smith, the poster boy for English rugby, stepped up with a last-gasp drop goal to deliver the kind of knockout blow that is estimated to have earned Anthony Joshua £40 million against Francis Ngannou just 16 hours before.
“I don’t think he’s got what it takes to deliver the killer blow against those top sides.”
😳 #ENGvIRE | #sixnations pic.twitter.com/zyZrxdoYYI
ADVERTISEMENT— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) March 9, 2024
In the grand scheme of things, it might not have been as significant as Jonny Wilkinson’s World Cup-winning drop goal in 2003 or the three drop goals that George Ford slotted over against Argentina in the World Cup earlier this season, but it could very well kickstart the belief that England under Borthwick can be a force.
But unlike the Irish media – who I understand were pretty crestfallen in the Twickenham media centre after the final whistle – let’s not get too carried away. This is very much a work in progress, but the likes of Smith, Ben Earl, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, George Martin, Ollie Lawrence, Tommy Freeman, Chandler Cunningham-South and Ollie Chessum certainly have age on their side, and there is no shortage of talent in the English game.
Fin Smith and Jack van Poortvliet are both injured. Freddie Steward, arguably their best player in the first two games, dropped. Then you have the likes of Asher Opoku-Fordjour, Greg Fisilau, and Olly Hartley, who are all hotly tipped to win caps in the near future, waiting patiently in the wings for their chance.
Earl rightly attacked England’s critics after the Ireland win, saying the result wasn’t ‘bad for England’s worst-ever team.’ But anybody who claims this is England’s worst-ever team should look up the 1966 team that didn’t win a game and only claimed a draw with Ireland.
If anything, yesterday’s result has taught me to focus less on social media likes for criticising Borthwick and give him time to prove us all wrong by building a team that gives us regular moments of euphoria like the one we felt when Smith’s kick sailed between the uprights.
The irish pundits are hilarious. The worst thing in the world was english or AB or saffa “arrogance” for them but now they double down and are so much more insufferable, and they don't even have the results to back the cheques they write, WC results lol.
Almost done with this ludicrous site. Is this a clickbait site or a serious rugby site?
Does this count as journalism?
Lazy and insulting article. ALL of the people saying Ireland were the best team in the world were British not Irish. The bookies had Ireland at 4-1 on. This man trawled Irish media and surprise surprise was able to find a few quotes to base his ClickBait article on.
At the very end he admits he was one of the people sh1tting on Borthwick for clicks (his expression).
If he had trawled British journalists he would have found a far higher concentration of pro Irish anti England takes.
Hey mate where did you go after the world cup? You were so loud!! All of a sudden crickets. You're back now huh, did you have some counselling sessions? Hope they went well
Ireland has developed an excellent attacking pattern over recent years. However teams have analysed it now and worked out ways to defend it. As my team the All Blacks both showed and experienced themselves previously. To dominate the modern game teams must continually evolve their attacking templates. To me Ireland have become a bit predictable. A great team though to be sure if you don’t contain them they will take you apart.
They’ve lagged behind on their defensive structures though. England (and NZ) has exposed this. This is where they lost - leaking tries against an England team that have been “rubbish” - more specifically on attack! Giving away penalties on defense.
Scotland’s tails will be up.
What nonsense. You can talk about the ridiculousness of a prediction from the comfort of knowing the result.
England were muck for the first 3 games but were excellent for the last game. It wasn’t Irish hubris that was predicting an easy win it was working off the evidence.
Its really easy to be wise after the event but let’s not claim that it was only the Irish who believed that England wouldn’t cope with the Irish. Let’s not make it personal.
England deserved to win. They played their best match for 5 years, IMHO.
England have the same win ratio as Ireland since the World Cup, including bronze medals and now a win against “the worlds best team”.
If this kind of narrative persists about England, and Ireland loses against Scotland - what on earth will we say about Ireland then? Worst Ireland team ever?
Well lets be honest now, the Irish media were having a laugh and now the joke is on them. England are not a bad team, there is talent there and they were playing at home and were rightly fired up for this one. Ireland looked like they underestimated them but also pitched up and played fairly well. England put them under pressure and deserved the win. They played the better rugby on the day. You cannot underestimate a proud rugby nation when they play at home. You do so at your own peril
Why Irish media? A far higher concentration of scepticism was coming from British media. Irish media will support the Irish team and International bookies had Ireland at 4-1 on.
Ireland Farrell and O’Mahoney were at pains to say that they were expecting a titanic battle. There is zero evidence that the Irish team underestimated them.
Question is, will England maintain that intensity and attacking intent in Paris next week or withdraw into their shells?
You are mistaken if you think it was attacking intent alone that created the England tries. They identified that an Irish strenght, clearout kicks, was potentially a match losing weakness that England could exploit.
Two tries directly from clear out kicks. England realized that serious pressure could be applied to Ireland’s Lineout and to Ireland’s kick. If Ireland made touch, England would mess their lineout. If they didnt make touch Furbank would launch an attack, almost a strike play. First England try, Lowe got serious pressure, kick was short. Furbank sprinted diagonal to left field where loads of white shirts were waiting. One good clearout and there was an overlap.
Borthwick used the first 3 games to train the new systems and in the two weeks before Ireland, specific training to win that match. The Ireland match would have been the primary target before the tournament. While they should maintain intensity (there will be some fatigue) and intent, there may not be as much practiced and deadly attack play as versus Ireland as shorter planning time.
My suggestion to the Irish Media is maybe get past a quarter final before you start signing from the hilltops.
In 50 years from now, nobody will remember and care that you were consistently the best team in the world for a 10 year period. In 50 years from now the only thing people will remember is that the Springboks won 2 World Cups in that same 10 year period.
This Ireland team is unbelievably good and definitely better on the eye than everyone else. A world class team without a doubt.
But here’s the catch, you have to earn your right to be arrogant. You have to earn the right to talk trash.
And simply put, Ireland haven’t earned that right yet.
Hey Turlough. Yep we gonna choke on three RWC victories including the first team to go back to back as well as making two RWC finals against our great foes SA. Yep we are going to choke on only being knocked out in the QF once as opposed to eight times, by the way is that what that formation in response to the Haka QF stood for? We will also choke on losing only one game in pools in history. Yep its a lot to choke on. Ireland are a great team at the moment but if we are chokers you guys are not even at the table to choke on something. To my fellow rugby fans this is just a counter to Turloughs BS, I respect Ireland and the ABs sure do will be a really hard game in Dublin this year.
You’re a Kiwi. The biggest Rugby Choker Union on planet earth, Until you change your passport or emigrate you don’t get to call others chokers. Still whinging about Ireland’s Eaaasy series win in NZ? Oh sorry I forgot, that was ‘statistacally the worst NZ team in history’. BS artists!!!!
Hot and cold Scotland can absolutely beat Ireland on the day. They just need to watch how NZ and England did it.
And England can without a doubt win the 6N. They have the grit and now the belief they can win.
Then let’s hear how great Ireland are.
So any team can beat any other team just by watching a video of how some other team it?
You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed are you?
Once again the most influential players for Ireland were 3 Kiwis.
Lowe's defence was exposed badly against the England winger. Gibson Park…a key player….had to play on the wing. Did you actually watch the match or do you make the same trolley comment after every Ireland match. Just cant get over our easy series win in NZ? Give our best to the Samoans.
Who developed their games in Ireland…boring post pal that adds nothing
Difficult time to play England in all honesty. If they’d met in R2 the result would have probably been very different. England were due a good game and looks like the defeat to Scotland provided the bounce they needed.
Game was ultimately only decided by a point, so Ireland shouldn’t feel too aggrieved.
England had to bed new systems and be competitive in the tournemant. Zoom out and look at how Borthwick might have planned this. First 3 matches = general training mainly on new defence systems (word from camp that all training was defence, backs rarely getting touches). 2 weeks specific training for the main target: Ireland in Twickenham. 1 week then to bonus match with France.
So 3 matches during the development period, and two peak matches.
England really had Ireland worked out: look at the two tries from kick returns.
They won’t have quite the preparation time for such excellent plans against France and although they will try hard to hit that physical and psychological intensity two weeks on the trot. Think Rugby quarters versus semis.
Shane Horgan needs a spoon for his big plate of humble pie
He thought Ireland would win as did ALL British media. Why should he or any Irish journalists eat humble pie? Let the English media apologize for their hit jobs on Borthwick.
There are antediluvian creatures living under stones at the bottom of dark ponds that exhibit far greater intelligence than Shane “Donkey” Horgan….