Visitors can forge a winning new identity under Maro Itoje but the experienced Irish remain marginal favourites. E very Six Nations fixture is a grand occasion but some games are bigger than others. England have subsequently played eight Test matches and lost six, beating only Japan twice. This leaves the Borthwick chariot at a precarious tipping point.
Overturn the defending champions and the past becomes irrelevant. Lose badly and public perceptions may start to harden again. If it is followed by home defeats against France and Scotland, the under-fire Rugby Football Union hierarchy will have more special general meetings in the diary than the national team has victories.
Plenty of other awkward questions would also resurface. Is a team Premiership without the jeopardy of automatic relegation the best preparation for intense Test matches? Has a mid-season change of captaincy made any discernible difference? So, no pressure. Nothing on the line at all, particularly in a Lions year against an Irish team long on experience and big-game smarts.
Cian Healy has been around almost as long as the Book of Kells and, since , Ireland have lost only two of their past 29 home Six Nations fixtures. In practice that should not change a huge amount, given the seasoned nature of the squad and its Leinster-dominated makeup. A third successive outright title win would set a record for any side in Five or Six Nations history. That said, England might just be better suited to tackling Ireland than, say, France because the patterns the Irish tend to use are more familiar and orthodox.
Pressure them at the breakdown and attack with energy and home frustration, in theory, could grow. So can England take thrilling advantage and create a whole new identity for themselves? I have them for 13 weeks a year.
