Don’t shush Grand Slam talk, embrace it

Let’s hope that the Grand Slam hasn’t been treated as some sort of interloper around the team room in Carton House this week. Keith Earls was on the money when he said that the next two games were the biggest of his Irish career.

Why would the Irish players be keeping talk of the Grand Slam off the table, as some are suggesting? I hope and presume the players are talking about it all the time in terms of their focus.

Eight months of hard graft and meticulous preparation is down the toilet if they do the unthinkable and lose at home to Scotland tomorrow. Beating Gregor Townsend’s men is less a win in its own right than it is a means to an end now.