Ireland captain James Ryan admits to some nerves for the team ahead of the match against England
James Ryan admitted lack of competitive rugby in recent months for many of the Ireland team means there will be nerves for the hosts going into Saturday’s Rugby World Cup warm-up Test against England in Dublin.
It is a second preparatory international for world’s No 1-ranked team, who are regarded as one of the favourites to triumph at this year’s global gathering on the back of completing the Grand Slam in year’s Six Nations, but spluttered past Italy with a largely second-string selection a fortnight ago.
Since then, Andy Farrell’s squad have been on a week-long training camp in Portugal as they fine-tune themselves for next month’s tournament in France and skipper Ryan knows there is expectation on Ireland as they face an England side aiming to shake off two patchy performances against Wales.
“I think there’s a bit of nerves heading into this game,” Ryan, who deputises as captain with Jonny Sexton suspended, said.
“It’s the first game for a lot of us of this summer and playing England at home, there’s always a little bit of pressure. The lads are keen to make a statement with selection and everything coming up.
“This has never been a warm-up game for us. It’s been very much a Test match, that’s the way we’ve prepared for this game all week. It’s obviously a lot of the guys’ first appearance of the summer, so it’s going to be tough but we’re not going to make any excuses.”
England head to Dublin on the back of a 19-17 win over Wales at Twickenham, which saw them rebound from the defeat in Cardiff the week before but still left Steve Borthwick’s side facing plenty of questions about the potency of their attacking game.
George Ford secured England’s win over Wales at Twickenham
George Ford, who kicked the winning points for England against Wales and starts at fly-half for the visitors on Saturday, acknowledged there are improvements to be made but insists they are working on getting it right ahead of their tournament-opener against Argentina on September 9 in Marseille.
“My experience is that of all departments of the game, it takes the longest to get the attack functioning,” Ford said. “We want to speed it up, we want to get there as quickly as possible.
“We know there’s an urgency that we need to start attacking better and causing problems and scoring tries – we understand that.
“The main thing is how we can be more potent when we’ve got the ball, how we can get the outside backs in space with the ball to create damage and cause chaos.”
An unfamiliar-looking Ireland team stuttered past Italy in their World Cup warm-up match two weeks ago
Ryan believes Ireland have their own issues in attack to iron out as well after head coach Farrell labelled their 33-17 victory over Italy in Dublin on August 5 “clunky”.
“We must have been distracted a little bit by something,” Ryan said, reflecting on that game. “We were a little bit off. I just thought our attack wasn’t where it needed to be, it wasn’t as cohesive or as fluid as it usually is.
“In fairness, they put us under a lot of pressure defensively. They like to get off the line quickly and be aggressive in their defence, so maybe we got a little bit spooked by that at times and we weren’t as calm maybe and accurate as we needed to be off the back of it.
“There were a few lessons in the game and we need to be better because England have a couple of games now under their belt and they will definitely be looking at this fixture as one which is as big for us as it is for them.”
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Ireland head coach Andy Farrell has criticised the “circus” surrounding his son Owen, with the England captain’s World Cup participation in doubt.
The build-up to this match has been overshadowed by the controversy around England captain Owen Farrell’s red card for a dangerous tackle on Taine Basham which was subsequently not upheld by an independent disciplinary panel.
Farrell still faces a wait to see if he will be able to take part in the World Cup though after global governing body World Rugby chose to appeal the panel’s decision and he has been withdrawn from the England squad for Saturday’s match.
Courtney Lawes will instead skipper the side and the flanker feels there are wider disciplinary issues England need to address after Henry Arundell, Freddie Steward and Ellis Genge were all sin-binned against Wales last week as well.
“We had a few silly cards that you really don’t want to get in Test match rugby,” Lawes said. “We’ve really been on the discipline from day one in camp, talking about how important it is at the World Cup.
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Courtney Lawes says England have a talented squad that is capable of proving their critics wrong at the World Cup.
“It was disappointing to get so many cards and give away so many penalties last week. It’s something we’re constantly working on and hammering down.
“We can’t afford those kinds of mistakes against Ireland. You’re not going to go a season without a card, but to the best of your ability you’ve got to be smart and streetwise with your actions.
“Even in those split seconds you’ve got to have a cool head and hopefully make the right decisions at the right time.”
Teams for Ireland vs England (5.30pm)
Ireland: 15 Hugo Keenan, 14 Mack Hansen, 13 Garry Ringrose, 12 Bundee Aki, 11 James Lowe, 10 Ross Byrne, 9 Jamison Gibson-Park; 1 Andrew Porter, 2 Dan Sheehan, 3 Tadhg Furlong, 4 Tadhg Beirne, 5 James Ryan (captain), 6 Peter O’Mahony, 7 Josh van der Flier, 8 Cian Prendergast.
Replacements: 16 Rob Herring, 17 Jeremy Loughman, 18 Finlay Bealham,19 Joe McCarthy, 20 Caelan Doris, 21 Conor Murray, 22 Jack Crowley, 23 Keith Earls.
England: 15 Freddie Steward, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Joe Marchant, 12 Manu Tuilagi, 11 Elliot Daly, 10 George Ford, 9 Ben Youngs; 1 Ellis Genge, 2 Jamie George, 3 Will Stuart, 4 Maro Itoje, 5 David Ribbans, 6 Courtney Lawes (captain), 7 Ben Earl, 8 Billy Vunipola.
Replacements: 16 Theo Dan, 17 Joe Marler, 18 Kyle Sinckler, 19 Ollie Chessum, 20 Jack Willis, 21 Danny Care, 22 Marcus Smith, 23 Ollie Lawrence.