Twickenham wounds have fully healed, insists Farrell

As miserable as Ireland’s performances were against England in 2019, Andy Farrell insisted there would be no lingering scar tissue from those heavy defeats when his side runs out at Twickenham on Sunday.

Of the matchday squad of 23 the Ireland head coach named yesterday for the 2020 Guinness Six Nations third-round showdown at the old cabbage patch, all but two of the players played a part in one or both of those hidings, a humbling 32-20 home defeat in last year’s championship opener and a 57-15 World Cup warm-up humiliation in the sweltering London heat last August 24.

The brutal, one-sidednature of those contests each dealt a massive blow to the confidence of an Irish side which had climbed the highest of rugby mountains in 2018,including the completion ofa Grand Slam at the very ground they will revisit this weekend.

But Farrell does not believe there is any residual negativity from those dark days, at least no more than exists in the England camp after a demoralising World Cup final defeat to South Africa a little more than four months ago.

Eddie Jones’s side lost their first game back when they went down in Paris on February 2 but rallied against the Scots in the teeth of Storm Ciara up at Murrayfield a week later.

Were they still hurt from that defeat to the Springboks, Farrell was asked yesterday having named an unchanged team from the victory over Wales last time out.

“I wouldn’t think so, no,” he replied.

”They are two games under their belt (since the final), I am sure they have addressed a few things over the last couple of weeks, so I am sure they are super excited about the game.”

And what of Ireland, any lasting scare tissue from their England hidings last year?

"I wouldn’t say so. I’d certainly say the opposite, like I just said about England.

I’m sure that they’ll be using the game against France and obviously the type of performance that it was against Scotland as whetting their appetite to get back on the field at home for the first time in the Six Nations and play the rugby they know they can play.

"We feel we’re making a bit of progress in our own game and we’re as excited as they are.”

Two from two and going for a Triple Crown on English soil, Ireland have every right to feel good about themselves as they prepare for Twickenham and Farrell has not put that at risk by changing personnel from the victory over Wales last time out. He resisted the temptation to recall Caelan Doris at No. 8 following the completion of return to play protocols after sustaining a concussion just minutes into his Test debut againstScotland in round one.

Doris’s inclusion in the new head coach’s first starting XV at the expense of Peter O’Mahony certainly paid dividends for both Farrell and the Munster captain, whose early introduction against the Scots and subsequent start against Wales showed the flanker back to his bristling best while CJ Stander returned man-of-the- match performances in both games on the back of his initial switch to O’Mahony’s blindside flanker role.

Ireland will need a continuation of such form if they are to reap further rewards at Twickenham this weekend.

It will, in fact, need something close to the high levels Ireland reached for Joe Schmidt in 2018 when they put in a near-perfect performance on St Patrick’s Day to secure the Slam.

They have not been reached since but Farrell sees that high physical intensity building once more after the first two rounds of the 2020 championship.

“We talk about it a lot,” he said. “In fact, we train like that a bit more now. We feel we’ve had two physical games, the Scotland one was really physical and that did us the world of good going into the Welsh game.

“Yeah, so, we know what type of game it is going to be, we know how England want to play.

“They play hard on the gainline, try to win quick ball, winning collisions, etc. We’ve seen them do that with great success over a number of years.

“So, we know what’s coming as far as that’s concerned. We want to turn up and express ourselves in that way as well.”

Just as Ireland regained their ability to win collisions against the Welsh following an unimpressive opening performance in beating Scotland, the men in green also showed much more attacking fluency against the defending champions, their four tries coming in a variety of fashions showcasing the best of what Ireland bring to a Test match while still leaving another handful of scoring opportunities out on the field by full-time in a 24-14 victory.

Farrell believes the work being put in by his new attack coach and fellow former England assistant Mike Catt is also progressing but will need more time to come to full fruition than the restoration of physical intensity in contact.

The attack always takes the longest to try and implement things but we can certainly see over the last three weeks that it was starting to click a little bit more.

“Those things take time, I know Mike is enjoying himself and the boys enjoy what he’s coaching them.

“They’re learning quite a bit, so far so good.”

Sunday represents a fresh chance to see further development and again, retaining the backline en masse gives Catt a better opportunity to gauge that progress. As always, though, these things areeasier said than done.