Andy Farrell: 'The Six Nations has just started for us now'

Head coach Andy Farrell.

There was a time in Irish rugby when the very notion of looking beyond the Five or Six Nations for a higher peak would have been unthinkable. Not just in the bad old days of wooden spoons. In more recent and affluent times too.

Andy Farrell’s side are two-fifths of the way towards a first ever back-to-back Grand Slam in the Six Nations era and yet a routine missive from South Africa early yesterday reminds us that this spring campaign is, in a way, more akin to a shoulder than the summit.