Andy Farrell: 'There is bigger fish to fry than this'

Part of Andy Farrell just wanted to turn off the Aviva Stadium lights and get the party started down the road. 

He mentioned the next 48 hours and the fun his team and staff and families would have celebrating this Grand Slam more than once after the final whistle, but another part of him was ready to flick a switch and start the countdown to France.

SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2023

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2023

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

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Ireland will go to the World Cup later this year as the top-ranked side on the planet. It won’t be the first time: they did just that in Japan in 2019 and it did them no good. This time is different. 

This time they will pitch up at the global gig with all the usual kit and bandages and protein bars and then a jumbo supply of momentum with it.

“I’ve just been saying to Johnny (Sexton) that there is bigger fish to fry than this, you know. So, we are on to the World Cup… No, we’re just going to enjoy this next 48 hours, one hundred per cent. We are a good side that has nowhere near reached its potential. I’ve been saying over the last couple of weeks that’s what we have been striving to do.

“Like Johnny said, we’ll get a few people back to compete, train hard. Everyone is going to get better in the summer when we get to spend more time together. We expect our side, when we get to the first game in the World Cup to be a lot better than what we are now and that’s the reality.” 

None of this is new. Farrell has flirted around the same sentiments for weeks now. Assistant coach Mike Catt suggested on Friday that his attack had only played in dribs and drabs through this Six Nations. That’s an attack that went through the tournament averaging four tries per game, by the way. These guys aren’t sated, not nearly.

Sexton sings from the same sheet. The Ireland captain spoke after this England game about how this Slam was a high point but not, hopefully, the highest. A Slam that was lovely and cherished and so richly-deserved but not the end. Not nearly the end. This team will raise a glass to themselves the next few days but the grandest of balls is for another day.

It’s not just what these guys are saying. It’s the fact that none of it comes across as arrogant. It’s matter-of-fact statement after statement that anyone with a set of eyes can see is true. No team has ever put in the fabled ’80-minute performance’ but Ireland haven’t come close to it yet. Seriously. They just haven’t.

Circumstance has dictated some of that. Cruel fates have tried to shunt Ireland off course all tournament but they did a decent job of trying to beat themselves for an hour here on Saturday night. It was almost easier to believe that this was wilful self-sabotage, a final test of their ability to react to adversity.

A better team than England – and one with 15 men for the full game - probably would have made them pay but the bottom line is that they yet again found a way to do what had to be done. Three tries in the last 18 minutes was all it took. Write it like that and it sounds very All Blacks of them, doesn’t it?

“When we dust ourselves down and reflect on this, what is obviously going to stick with us forever is the memory of the togetherness of the group and the adversity that we have gone through, and relished really and come out the other side,” said Farrell.

“You look at all of the games, they have had all sorts of stuff going on but we always found a way and again today. We was disappointed at half-time but again we found a way. We will analyse that performance and pull it apart again but the reality is that it is a bonus-point win against a good side that was really looking to spoil the party for themselves.”