‘England played like Ireland whenever they have a chip on their shoulder’

Jack O'Toole

Former Ireland winger Andrew Trimble has said that England played like ‘Ireland when Ireland have a chip on their shoulder’ following their 32-20 win over Joe Schmidt’s side at Lansdowne Road on Saturday.

England were by some distance the better side in Dublin and outmatched an Irish side that had lost just one game since the 2017 Six Nations.

Ireland will look to resurrect their campaign when they head to Edinburgh to face Scotland on Saturday but Trimble felt that Eddie Jones’ side did to Ireland what the defending champions generally do to their opposition.

“They were just coming up and smashing boys,” said Trimble.

“Mako Vunipola was coming out and ending Tadhg [Furlong]? Like when do you see Tadhg get hit that hard? Even James Ryan, I mean for 12 months I’ve never seen him get physically abused like he got at the weekend there.

“They were on fire… It was all based on their defence and they obviously showed some nous and smarts in attack with ball in hand but it was based on their defence.

“I thought it was almost like an Ireland performance whenever they got a chip on their shoulder. Like when England came over a couple of years ago hunting a Grand Slam. They were just so, so up for it and I think with England it just looked like guys were getting on their feet and getting up and smashing boys.

“That kind of intensity they brought in defence was almost like one of those occasions where Ireland have got up for it in the past and we didn’t match it.”

Fellow international and co-host Barry Murphy felt that England may not be able to replicate that level of performance over the remainder of the tournament but noted that Ireland’s kicking tactics were quite unusual.

“I think England played their best game in years and they probably won’t play that well again, maybe close to it, because they were on fire, so you have to take that into consideration.

“Ireland didn’t play particularly well but England were unbelievable and we still were there or thereabouts after 60 minutes.

“When I look at that game I look at the collisions, we didn’t win the collisions, but then the kicking, I thought our tactics were strange with kicking.

“We weren’t kicking contestables like we normally do. There was a kick Murray had after 30 seconds and he put it into touch. Which was quite unusual.”