Easterby urges Ireland to make chances count in ‘arm wrestle’

Ireland may have got over the line to beat France last time out but forwards coach Simon Easterby believes they will have to make every opportunity count on Sunday against England if they are to continue their RBS 6 Nations campaign unbeaten.

Joe Schmidt’s team went tryless against the French, relying on the kicking boots of Johnny Sexton and Ian Madigan to secure the points in an 18-11 victory in Dublin.

Yet the Irish management are preparing their players for a tougher challenge when the English arrive at the Aviva Stadium this weekend. Easterby knows they cannot afford to put down the sort of passes or make the type of mistakes they did in attack 12 days ago if they are to beat England for the first time since the 2011 Six Nations.

“We’re disappointed with some of the opportunities that we created and didn’t quite make the most of against France and that could be the difference between the French having the ascendancy in the last 10 minutes and us being 12-15 points ahead,” Easterby said yesterday.

“That’s where we need to get to if we’re going to beat these teams well. We’ve got to make sure that we take those chances at lineout, maul-time phases. If we’re creating them, then we’ve got to make sure we make the most of them because they’ll be few and far between.

“The weekend’s going to be an arm wrestle, there’s no doubt about that and we need to make sure we stay in it and the rest of the time we need to make sure we play smart and hold our discipline.”

Easterby said there were no new fitness issues in the Ireland camp after yesterday’s training session in Kildare. Munster flanker Tommy O’Donnell completed the latest stage of his return-to-play protocols following a concussion sustained last Saturday at Scarlets.

Scrum-half Eoin Reddan certainly appears ready to resume his place in the matchday squad having missed the opening two rounds due to a knee injury, Isaac Boss filling in as cover for Conor Murray against Italy and France.

Reddan has returned to the Irish camp unable to detect any concern, despite debate outside the camp regarding the perceived lack of attacking threat.

“No, there’s no angst,” the Leinster half-back said. “We approach each week differently, there’s not really a thing we’re trying to crack all the time that isn’t working. We come in, there’s a plan there, we learn the plan and we go and execute the plan.

“It’s not something that anyone’s frustrated with or anything like that. We’ve done two days training now with things to work on for the weekend and people are in a positive mindset but we’re very much aware of what’s coming. But there isn’t any angst or anything like that.

“At this level it’s always seconds or even fractions of seconds so, yeah, things have been close to coming off and we’re able to identify when those things haven’t happened, why they haven’t happened.

“That’s probably why, hopefully, you get an improvement, why you realise as the weeks go just how close to perfection you’ve got to be to achieve those things. So that’s what we’ll be looking at this week again, trying to get our stuff right and complete those phases we’re talking about.”