He believes it is well within their grasp, but Leinster senior coach Stuart Lancaster has nonetheless cautioned that Ireland can’t afford to get ahead of themselves in their hunt for a Six Nations Grand Slam success.
Last Saturday’s meeting between the Irish and defending champions France at the Aviva Stadium was billed by many as a potential championship decider.
Given they came through the game with the maximum tally of five points for the second weekend running, there appears to be a golden opportunity for Ireland to secure a clean sweep of Six Nations honours.
Yet experience has taught Lancaster how a big win is quickly forgotten about if it doesn’t lead to the promised land come the end of a campaign. Across four consecutive championships as England head coach (2012-2015), Lancaster guided his home country to four triumphs from five games in each season, with just a Triple Crown in 2014 to show for their efforts.
The Counter Ruck: the rugby newsletter from The Irish Times
England target revival against old foe South Africa after successive defeats
Ireland v Argentina: Robbie Henshaw takes over from Bundee Aki in only change to starting XV
Warren Gatland ‘didn’t think there would be so much pain’ in Wales reboot
“You wouldn’t be taking anything for granted because every game starts from zero. My experience of the Six Nations is that you might have games like these, but they are in the back of your mind by the end of the tournament. Because if you don’t win all five games there is always a sense of what if,” Lancaster said at a Leinster media briefing yesterday.
“You don’t tend to remember the ones you won, you remember the ones you lost. It’s easier said than done. For me it was won four, lost one, four times. So you keep focusing on the next job.”
While there were a whopping 21 Leinster players named in the Ireland squad for the week of the French game, the quintet of Jordan Larmour, Joe McCarthy, Michael Milne, Jimmy O’Brien and Jamie Osborne have been released back to the province ahead of Saturday’s United Rugby Championship clash with Dragons at the RDS.
It was initially hoped that Robbie Henshaw might be in the reckoning for the visit of the Welsh region with a view to him then being in the mix for the latter stages of the Six Nations, but Lancaster revealed his wrist injury is taking longer to heal than originally envisaged.
“It has taken a while. It’s frustrating for him, but the last thing anybody wants to do is to bring him back early and then he gets injured again. We just want to be sure,” Lancaster added.
