Hartley ready to enforce discipline on the English side

‘Experience of playing away in a cauldron like the Aviva is going to be big for us’

With Mike Brown out of Sunday’s game with Ireland, Dylan Hartley is seen as ‘the enforcer’ of the England side. It is a tag the hooker disagrees with, but in Brown’s absence he will be one of the key men tasked with finding the right emotional intensity at the Aviva.

Brown woke up yesterday with a headache as it was confirmed he has not fully recovered from being knocked unconscious against Italy some 12 days ago.

After a week of fluctuating messages from the England camp this one was clear; he will not recover and will be replaced by Alex Goode at full-back for the trip to Dublin.

With Jack Nowell for Jonny May on the wing likely to be the only other change, the remaining 13 England players do not need to look back far to remember the levels they need to reach against Ireland.

That opening day win against Wales will live long in the memory, and for some it proved a point.

None more so than in the case of Hartley, who admitted yesterday he had given Stuart Lancaster ‘the perfect excuse’ to drop him after his latest in a long line of misdemeanours.

Hartley has been banned for 50 weeks in his career, the most recent being a red card for elbowing Leicester’s Matt Smith in December.

The Northampton skipper is clear, though. He will not be provoked in Dublin. He will not rise to the bait – even without Brown to claim the tag of ‘Mr Angry’.

“I understand perception is what it is,” said Hartley somewhat wearily yesterday. “Whenever I can I change that, but unfortunately it’s hard to change. And every now and then I give them something to keep that perception alive. But I like that stat (that he has not received a card of any description in 23 Six Nations games).

“Lanny had a perfect opportunity to drop me but I think I’ve given him the reason to keep me here in the first two games. I know when I get it right I can do the business on the day. I don’t think anyone on the field wants to get yellow cards. There’s a fine line and they seem to find their way to me so I’m well aware of that before I take the field. I’ve been around long enough now, and have had my downs, so I can appreciate the ups. I’m in a good place here.

“I’ve tried to keep my head down and let my rugby do the talking. It has been a conscious decision by myself to try to go back to basics and let my rugby do the talking and I think I’ve done that quietly.”

Yet while Hartley has struggled in the past with keeping his head down, he feels certain England can cope in Sunday’s maelstrom.

“The whole occasion of playing away from home in places like the Millennium Stadium means theatrics, the sideshow and it’s not just the rugby game, there’s all this other stuff going on which you try to have to remove.

“I’m not saying Ireland will try to do the same, but the experience of playing away in an atmosphere, a cauldron like the Aviva is going to be big for us, but something we’ve experienced already – recently — so something we can deal with as well.”