Rory Best: We can’t let England bully us again

Rory Best leads Ireland once more unto the Twickenham breach today confident his team has the smarts if not the bulk to prove the home Six Nations defeat to England was an aberration rather than a bad omen for the upcoming World Cup.

Badly beaten by a hugely physical England side in February as the glories of 2018 were consigned to distant memory, Best, 37 last week, admitted his side was bullied.

“There’s no point in hiding from the fact that they came to Dublin and right from the first exchanges they sort of dominated areas in areas where we take a lot of pride in how good we are,” Best said. “We got bullied a little bit.

“That’s probably the big area for us to be better. Obviously, the circumstances will be slightly different; a World Cup warm-up versus the first game of the Six Nations. For us, it’s about making sure those opening exchanges don’t get away from us, as they have in two of the Six Nations games. When they got away from us, the result ended up getting away from us as well.

I think it’s mental, seeing things early, it’s about making sure that we team up. Ultimately our greatest strength is our collective. Whenever you go in ones and twos, that’s when the size or physicality in a one-on-one basis comes to play.

"But if you can be smart, play smart rugby with good angles, teaming up in twos in the tackle and being able to play passes, not just being a one-off runner with no visible options either way, and letting teams come at you and hit you hard, which is probably what we showed against England a little bit in February.

“A one-off runner around the corner and they’re a very good team, a very good defensive team and they just kept walloping the one-off runner.

"I think what we did better previous to that was we had a lot more people willing to work hard to get into position, maybe not to get the ball but just take the pressure off somebody inside in attack, and that’s what we’ve been working very hard on because we need to make sure that we have people on their feet to give us options.

"We’ve got to be able to work hard to get into position early and it’s the same in defence. If we’re slightly late to things, then it becomes a size thing. There’s no point in trying to bluff anyone, we’re not the biggest team in the world but I do think this is one of the smartest rugby teams I’ve played in so it would be foolish not to play to your strengths.”

Best believes Ireland have learned from their mistakes in the first half of the year when defeat also came in the final game of the championship in Cardiff to hand Wales the Grand Slam.

“You look back in hindsight and maybe we got the preparation wrong when we were here (in Portugal) at the end of January. It was very much about getting ourselves ready. I think the coaches were pushing us but as players we felt a bit tired. We know we’re good so it will just be a case of getting it right next game leading into the game.

“I suppose we’ll know better on Saturday where we are.Ultimately it is about making sure we’re right for September 22 but that’s not just going to happen. You’ve got to make sure you start well and take your chance when it’s given to you.”

That chance comes today in the toughest of circumstances, England at Twickenham in the midst of a late-summer heatwave and on the back of a hard week’s training in 30C-plus conditions in Portugal.

“The World Cup is going to be a big ask and no matter, everyone that’s going to the World Cup has started off this season with an international and that’s the way it is. Obviously England at Twickenham is a tough ask but at the same time you see a lot about players in these circumstances and I believe it’s going to be quite hot on Saturday but we’ve been used to it here for the last few days so it is what it is.

"You can look at it and be afraid of it or look on it as a challenge. And this is a squad of players that try to get the most out of every opportunity. It’s going to be a big one.”