RBS SIX NATIONS 2009
IRELAND v ENGLAND
28 February 2009, Croke Park, Dublin - Match Preview

Being an England supporter is a funny business. On the one hand your national team is beating Italy, a team who have caused trouble for most teams over the years, by five tries to one; and everyone is slating them left right and centre. The following week they lose to Wales in Cardiff for the third successive Six Nations match and most are talking them up as if there was some confusion about who actually won the match.

As week three in England’s Six Nations campaign begins, Martin Johnson will be wondering what his seventh game in charge will have in store for him. Against Italy, England clearly played with a game plan in mind. Kick the ball into the Italian half, put them under pressure and feed off their mistakes and capitalise. After the disappointment of the autumn, you could just about forgive England for wanting to win the game first and foremost, even if it wasn’t in the most glamorous or free-flowing of ways. Italy tend to make any match against them a real dog-fight, scrapping for every inch and making it very difficult for their opposition to get any rhythm. For sixty minutes, they did just that against Ireland.

A week later and England had analysed the Welsh patterns of play they’d employed against Scotland and put in a defensive system that worked wonders in stopping last year’s Grand slam winners getting any real go forward ball. England’s defense coach Mike Ford has been under pressure by fans for a few years now but deserves real credit in coming up with a gameplan for stopping the Welsh onslaught. And when England did have the ball, a policy of keeping it in hand far more (at least after the opening quarter), nearly paid off after a couple of good tries were racked up on the scoreboard. Many believed that England were going into damage limitation mode, but you have to question the wisdom of doing anything but stopping Wales get into their stride at the Millenium stadium with the crowd behind them.

In the opening two weeks, England have clearly analysed their opponents, and put in place specific game plans to take them both on. The first clearly worked, and the second came close. Ireland will pose a number of different threats however, from 1 to 15. Their second row is potentially one of the best in the competition and the backrow has pace power and abrasiveness written all over it with Jamie Heaslip at No8 in particular, rapidly becoming one of the outstanding performers in this championship. O’Gara on his day will dictate play for the full eighty minutes, and with the returning form of captain Brian O’Driscoll, the dancing feet of Tommy Bowe and the always-excellent Rob Kearney in the backline, it could prove to be a very tough ask for the men in white.

Toby Flood in action against Wales

Martin Johnson has made one change to the starting XV for the trip to Croke Park, with Leicester fly half Toby Flood coming in for Andy Goode. You suspect that had Flood been fully fit on the opening weekend he would have got the nod from the very beginning. However having come on as a replacement against Wales and impressing and adding some real pace and attacking prowess to the England backline, he’s given his chance to stake a claim to the number 10 jersey.

Manager Martin Johnson hopes the Leicester Tiger, who also takes the goal-kicking duties, will bring some consistency to a position where England have used five different players in 10 Tests.

"Toby's been around the international scene for two or three years now and I see this as his chance to nail down the position," said Johnson. "Pulling the strings at international level is a big responsibility, and players have to experience a range of things before they can make the role theirs."

Having missed the opening two rounds, Flood is just happy to be back in the fold. "It was frustrating not to be involved against Italy because of my calf and I was happy to come off the bench against Wales. Hopefully I can set a platform to put people into space and cause problems for the opposition. It's the time you want to be to putting your hand up and making a mark, to cement a position in the squad in which there is a huge amount of competition."

Goode drops to the bench and is joined by recently recovered scrum half Danny Care, who will surely be desperate to come on and show Johnson what he’s been missing in the opening two weeks. Andrew Sheridan proved a few of his doubters wrong against Wales after holding his own in the scrum, and putting a few big dents into the Welsh defense in the loose. He’ll be looking to build on his improved performance as he packs down against John Hayes, who’ll be equalling the record for most capped Irish player.

Riki Flutey on the attack in round one

The centre partnership of Riki Flutey and Mike Tindall remains and having proved to be a constant threat in attack against Wales, Flutey will be looking to test the 10-12 channel for Ireland where Ronan O’Gara and Paddy Wallace line up.

The kicking game will also prove vital. Against Wales, England hoofed ball aimlessly downfield in the early part of the game and often failed to follow up with any sense of conviction. Box kicks will have to pressurise the Irish back three and give the chasers an incentive to do more than amble up in a line aimed to slow opposition but not to turn over. Any loose kicking will give Kearny a field day and will look to cut the English defense open with ball in hand.

Johnson insists Saturday's clash represents a "fantastic opportunity" to prove their mettle at Croke Park, where Brian Ashton's side - including seven members of the current 22 - were humiliated 43-13 two years ago.

"I think this will be the last time an England team will play at Croke Park for the forseeable future," Johnson added. “The atmosphere will be brilliant and it will be another great occasion. We need to obviously rise to it but not get carried away with it. We need to be thinking, and need to be accurate. Last week we were 9-0 down very quickly. We came back but it would be nice to not be in that position after 20 minutes."

Ireland players Jerry Flannery, Mick O'Driscoll and Ronan O'Gara at training

The pressure is on Ireland to win. They are, after all, at home and facing an English team that has lost four of its six matches under the leadership of Martin Johnson. As the only two wins came against international lightweights, the Pacific Islanders and Italy, Declan Kidney will face quite some enquiry if Ireland’s bid for the Grand Slam falls at the third hurdle. Defensively you would expect Ireland to be nowhere near as naïve as Wales where, and they will pose far more varied questions in attack.

After Wales’ poor attempt at the Stade de France yesterday, the championship has been blown wide open, and an English win this afternoon will make for the tensest of final rounds, if it isn’t living up to be already. Ireland are big favourites to win the match, and for England to have any chance of winning, the often-talked about (ad-nauseum) discipline issue will have to be kept in check. In the autumn Johnson picked a youthful team lacking in Test match experience; two months later and the England team manager has gone for a different approach, picking experienced campaigners throughout most of his team. It's a bold strategy, but will also be shown up to be a giant waste of time, should England suffer one or two more defeats in this campaign.

England squad on Friday afternoon

Ireland: R Kearney; T Bowe, B O'Driscoll (captain), P Wallace, L Fitzgerald; R O'Gara, T O'Leary; M Horan, J Flannery, J Hayes, D O'Callaghan, P O'Connell, S Ferris, D Wallace, J Heaslip.
Replacements: R Best, T Court, M O'Driscoll, D Leamy, P Stringer, G D'Arcy, G Murphy.

England: D Armitage; P Sackey, M Tindall, R Flutey, M Cueto; T Flood, H Ellis; A Sheridan, L Mears, P Vickery, S Borthwick (captain), N Kennedy, J Haskell, J Worsley, N Easter.
Replacements: D Hartley, J White, T Croft, L Narraway, D Care, A Goode, M Tait.

Kick-off: Sat Feb 28, 5.30pm; Croke Park, Dublin
TV: BBC1, BBC Interactive
Radio: BBC Radio 5 Live, RTÉ Sport