Ireland vs England - 6N 2025 match thread

Absolutely. What's better, two 10s a level below Sexton which is where I think we are, compared to 2015 RWC when Madigan started v Argentina.

SP and JC are both in between those two and that's great going fforward.we aren't overly reliant on one 10

Our problems in first half were down to awful breakdown work and poor handling. Conan or Izuchukwu at 6 next week with the other on bench. We started to win collisions in second half which was when we started to look better in attack.

SP was poor - no sugar coating it. Poor off tee and poor positional kicking. But no one is allowed to say it.

Sheehan is world class and has to start.

Conan and sheehan came on earlier and that's when we started to boss the game physially.

Did Aki come off injured or was it just tactical?

Is there some weird undercurrent of animosity between the virgin media commentary team or just me?

Don't apologise for that.

I completely agree, as I said earlier. The Prendergast Crowley debate is perfectly reasonable to discuss, as long as its done with evidence, proportion and respect to all parties.

SP was monstered a bit early on by the England aggression, but he's a very inexperienced Test player and will learn massively from today. Crowley came on and looked the part completely, so the coach will have food for thought, thankfully!

But yes, neither 10 won or lost it, credit must go to the pack and the coaches who came up with an approach to negate the England breakdown of the first half, and thats hugely impressive.

We can go to Edinburgh with quiet confidence.

So much of our win comes down to experience.

How many caps had we on the pitch and bench..

I thought we might have gone over the hill, but maybe not.

Is the squad gaining anything by Cian Healy getting minutes. Surely there is a younger player that should be gaining experience. C

Thought Kellleher was poor in open play, and Baird was poor. Conan and Sheehan made a huge differene when they came on and it led to the Aki try

Any day you beat England is good day

Matt Williams absolutely off his chops there

It's Sexton/O'Gara again kinda. 😄

Great choice to have and both are still learning.

Conan massively underrated?

Well the result is a good win for us.

However giving those 2 cheap tries to England should not have been on Ireland's watch when in play.

It was poor to give England a LBP in the end. However; if Ireland's performance was anything to go by; it was a mixed bag really in terms of performance & competency. It was tough to watch in one way but great in another.

The 1st half against England really didn't show us how well we were going at the races. It had no focus, no effort and no determination to even try a win a match. It felt really deflating seeing England go ahead by 5 points at the break.

It felt by half time that Ireland didn't have any intuition in them whatsoever to win this crucial encounter against England. There was a niggling feeling out there as we approached the 2nd half that Ireland's title race in this championship was potentially going to go off the rails after going through their 1st encounter against England this year.

But as soon as the 2nd half arrived; Ireland new tactics worked wonders for it's skill & intention. Ireland won the game with some slick skill with ball in hand and some wonderful line breaks & tries to keep us ahead until the final whistle was blown.

All of the tries from Ireland were formed with some of the best creativity out there on the field of play. They were simply superb. James Lowe was the major player in bringing 3 of those tries onto the board with JGP, Beirne & Sheehan alongside him. And Bundee Aki scored that fabulous try in-between those wonderful tries by the Lowe/Beirne & Lowe/Sheehan combos.

If I was looking at Scotland at Murrayfield next Sunday; I think that will be a tough game to watch as Scotland scored 6 tries against Italy today. They won't be many attempts by Scotland to backdown their intent on the pitch against Ireland next week. Ireland just need to be focused & to be clinical while they are looking at Scotland's game plan over the next eight days.

I feel that it will be a tough & tight game for us.

But it could be some showdown for us to see them go up against each other next weekend. I can't wait for it.