Twickenham makes England genuine World Cup contenders. Every other nation must enter this heady arena and
seek victory. Ireland tried, Ireland failed, Ireland never looked like repeating the aerial superiority that saw them prevail in Dublin during the Six Nations.
Not unlike 2007, already the game has moved on. Tommy Bowe looks to be lost at sea, run over by Jonny May. Simon Zebo was out-leaped by the marvellous Anthony Watson. Mike Brown snatched dropping ball off Dave Kearney.
The English backrow were ferocious, dominant. Chris Robshaw made 21 tackles, missed none. Ben Morgan was colossal. Tom Wood carried more than ever and made 17 hits. Seán O'Brien was the only menacing Irish force with 13 tackles. A hooded Cian Healy looked on.
"Look, I wouldn't get carried away with one game," said Munster captain Peter O'Mahony, reminding us that this is merely the end of Ireland's pre-season.
It meant so much more to England. On Friday week they entertain Fiji in the Pool from Hell. England needed to exude power and a dominant streak after losing in Paris. Ireland have a month before they must peak against France in Cardiff. England’s time must be now.
“We’ve had a big 18 months and it’s something we will take a lot of confidence from,” O’Mahony calmly added. “There were positives today.
Lacked accuracy
“When we did have the ball we felt we looked quite dangerous. We lacked a bit of accuracy. Dropped a few balls in good positions, which is uncharacteristic of us. But we are certainly building nicely what we want to build. We have a huge amount to work on but we have two weeks now to get it right, rest the bodies, get back to the drawing board.”
Jamie Cudmore’s Canada comes on Saturday week.
England attack “your weaknesses, attack your strengths”, said O’Mahony. “We’ve got to mind the ball. Against good teams like this you want to hold on to the ball. If you do you are going to be effective. When we got to six, seven, eight phases we broke down, which is uncharacteristic.”
But Ireland never held the ball, kicking 31 times, mainly because the life was squeezed out of them by Robshaw’s white wall. One tackler, one assisting and another to stifle and slow. The rest fanned out.
Suffocating. It doesn’t help that Ireland made a meagre three offloads to England’s 14.
But it could have been worse. Twickenham was rammed and the tweed coat brigade bayed for Celtic blood. It's an astonishingly tough environment to conquer. Even the All Blacks were vanquished in 2012.
"19-3 and it's a different game, isn't it?" noted Stuart Lancaster, the England coach liberated by this victory. And he's right; if Tom Youngs's pass had not been forward, May would have scored a second try before Ireland unearthed any sort of familiar rhythm.
Ireland didn’t look ready, but the leader disagrees. “Yeah, I do feel ready,” said Paul O’Connell. “Today’s a bit disappointing. The way we started particularly after losing last week is really disappointing. In the past when we’ve lost games we’ve been good at addressing it and correcting it. We did a little bit of that today but other things then fell off. I do feel the guys are in a good place. We just need to bring it all together now.”
That sounds awfully like adhering to the territorial game plan that delivered back-to- back Six Nations titles rather than evolving into a more attacking force.
“We just need to play our own game,” said Dave Kearney, now firmly cemented in the back three with elder brother Rob. “I think attacking-wise we are still good. We got ourselves into some good positions and then maybe just small a couple of small things, maybe passes weren’t as good as they should have been, where maybe the way we were moving we could have got some space down the edges, the space definitely was there for us.”
Passes don’t go to hand at Twickenham. No better place for a World Cup final. England could be there but Ireland? Let’s not get carried away with one game.
Dousing flames
Lancaster was immediately charged with dousing typically jubilant flames flaring all over west London. “Ireland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa . . . there are six or seven teams and whoever wins this World Cup will have to put a run together of consistent performances for seven games on the bounce.
“Playing at Twickenham, playing this way, we are a hard team to beat.”
Agreed.
