Grand Slams are not easy.

Winning five games in a row in a sport with the fine margins of test match rugby is an incredibly difficult feat for anyone, but for Irish teams in particular. In the history of Irish rugby, we’ve only ever won two. In 1948 and 2009. That last one is old enough that it’ll be 10 years ago next season. That isn’t to say that Ireland have underperformed since then – we’ve had a trio of Championships since that day in Cardiff – but, frustratingly, the Grand Slam has eluded us. In previous winning seasons, the Slam evaporated in week three and four in Twickenham and Cardiff. We haven’t had a Slam decider like this since 2009. Even with a Championship medal in the back pocket, that historic opportunity provides a unique, pressurised, exciting opportunity.

If we are to achieve an Caithréim Mhór we’ll have to do it in the hardest possible location – Twickenham, London, England. Forget about the last time Ireland won in Twickenham (2010) because that was a different group of players in different circumstances and has no relevance to this game. This is, for the most part, a new Irish rugby team with the shackles of what had been our ceiling thrown aside – Chicago saw to that. Ireland can beat any team, anywhere on any given day. There’s no better place to prove that than against England, in Twickenham on Saturday.

Do that, and immortality is the reward.

Let’s have a look at who’s going to try and do it and who’ll try to stop us.

England

15. Watson; 14. May, 13. Joseph, 12. Te’o, 11. Daly; 10. Farrell, 9. Wigglesworth;
1. Vunipola, 2. Hartley (c), 3. Sinckler, 4. Itoje, 5. Kruis, 6. Robshaw, 7. Haskell, 8. Simmonds

Replacements: 16. George, 17. Marler, 18. Cole, 19. Launchbury, 20. Armand, 21. Care, 22. Ford, 23. Brown

Ireland

15. Kearney; 14. Earls, 13. Ringrose, 12. Aki, 11. Stockdale; 10. Sexton, 9. Murray;
1. Healy, 2. Best (c), 3. Furlong, 4. Ryan, 5. Henderson, 6. O’Mahony, 7. Leavy, 8. Stander

Replacements: 16. Cronin, 17. McGrath, 18. Porter, 19. Toner, 20. Murphy, 21. Marmion, 22. Carbery, 23. Larmour

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Ireland have made one change – Henderson swapping with Toner in the second row – but other than that, it’s an incredibly settled squad of 23 and pretty much exactly what you’d expect from Schmidt ahead of a game like this.

England, on the other hand, have made quite a few changes. Some of those changes are injury-enforced and others are an attempt to rotate out the issues that Eddie Jones has had in this tournament. Ford drops down to the bench with Mike Brown, Joseph comes back into the starting lineup, and the back-five has been shifted around with Robshaw moving to 6, Haskell slotting in at 7 and Simmonds getting an #8 shirt.

A lot of Eddie Jones changes seem to be an attempt at remedying the broad strokes that have bothered England. They’ve struggled with directness, so he moves Te’o and Joseph into midfield. They’ve struggled with their back row physicality so in comes Haskell. They’ve looked bitty in possession so in comes reliable combinations like Vunipila, Itoje and Kruis along with Wigglesworth and Farrell.

The story you hear is that Ireland are the ones with nothing to lose but that couldn’t be further from the truth – that’s England’s advantage in this one. They’re at home, they’re playing the team that spoiled their Slam last season and they’ve got two rounds of away day frustration to work out of their system.

As challenges go, this is the toughest to date in this Championship.

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Wide For Narrow

If England’s Six Nations season to date has been characterised by problems at the breakdown, this selection from Jones is an attempt to change it up. When you look at a side getting jackaled consistently at the ruck, what you’re seeing is a symptom of a larger alignment problem. I went over the details on this a few weeks back – and it’s worth reading again if you have the time – but England’s problems at the breakdown are stemming from the wider alignment they’ve had to taken to mitigate against the loss of Billy Vunipola.

Those issues are still there but with this team selection, Jones has gone some way to remedy that problem.

• By selecting two hitters in midfield, England now have viable physical ball-carrying threats in the outside channels that they didn’t have with Ford and Farrell at 10 and 12.
• By putting Farrell at 10, Jones has narrowed England’s passing options and range but improved the running threat to Ireland’s edge defence in a way that will be easier for England to attack through Daly, May and Watson in particular.
• The enforced loss of Lawes and Hughes and given England a better, more mobile balance in the back row but it has also depleted their lineout options and tight power. The lineout aspect is particularly important but I’ll get to that later.

The changes to England’s 10/12 pairing is the biggest non-injury enforced change of Jones’ tenure to date but it was done for a few reasons. For a start, Ford just hasn’t been playing very well but I think it’s mainly to do with how England have been building their attacks.

To illustrate, have a look at this GIF;

Ford takes it to the gain line before popping the ball out the back to Farrell, who extends the range of England’s passing options from the second layer in front of the opposition defence.

This system had been massively effective for England over the past year but it began to lose efficiency this season. Why? Predictability.

George Ford has a particular style in that he takes the ball to the gain line and then passes the ball out. He rarely, if ever, takes contact on the gain line from #10. That meant that teams could afford to gamble on a blitz into England’s second layer to squeeze Farrell’s possession as, inevitably, he’d be given the ball to distribute to a wider strike runner like Watson, Brown, Joseph or Te’o.

This works quite well when you’ve got a lot of possession and you’re winning the collisions once the ball goes that bit wider. If teams stop buying that Ford is a viable carrying threat, and neither is Farrell, they get comfortable hammering into the English passing lanes knowing that England will be looking for the pass option more often than not.

This wider alignment worked for Jones in theory because it also increased the number of potential one-on-ones in space that it could generate for his forwards. As I wrote the other week, the theory seemed to be “if you can’t get Robshaw over the gain line in heavy traffic, maybe giving him the ball in wider spaces against another forward one on one will produce the ground you want”. The Two 10s plan worked brilliantly when you had a guy like Vunipola narrowing defences and committing numbers because space came as a natural consequence of Vunipola’s carrying. Without Vunipola – who I’d rate as the best ball carrying forward in world rugby when he’s fit – England have found that width is not their friend.

That width meant a weird mix of under-resourced rucks, over-resourced centre-field rucks and England losing momentum the longer sequence of phases went on.

When England made their changes on 60 minutes against France, they had most of the pieces they will be relying on this weekend in place.

Farrell at 10, Te’o at 12, Joseph at 13, Haskell at 7, Robshaw at 6, Simmonds at 8, Sinckler at 3. The style changed almost immediately but it also revealed how Ireland might try to stop England this weekend.

England went direct with close in fringe carries, narrow support lines and tempo-tempo-tempo.

With Farrell at 10, England were more effective at building attacking opportunities because the normal defensive surety – Ford will pass this deep to Farrell or someone else – wasn’t there. Farrell made an error in trying to offload this but one look at the scoreboard will show you why that happened.

Look at the numbers England were stacking on the outside! If they took a quick ruck here instead of going for the offload, there was a chance to build pressure.

This opportunity doesn’t present itself with Ford and Farrell on the pitch at the same time because the urge to pass the ball deeper isn’t there. Farrell is the sole distributor. England were forced to play flatter with one 10 on the pitch but in this instance, they were undone by the needless offload the loss of five forwards to resource a midfield ruck.

Instead of two 10s, England could now split their midfield hitters but…

… with five forwards around the breakdown, the next option was going to be a case of pick your poison. France were all numbered up on England’s carrying options. Farrell went with Joseph but England would lose metres behind the gain line on the next phase.

From there, the lack of forward carriers to hit the line outside the fringe was exposed. Look at the ball being shipped on here;

Nobody takes the ball on and the possession moves laterally with no pace and an incrementally large chance of losing possession with every pass. On the next phase, that was exactly what happened;

So what happened? England looked dangerous in the initial parts of this sequence when they had momentum off the set-piece break but started to fade as the impetus of the initial carry faded away.

What does this tell us? That England still have a problem with their ball carriers but if they can get initial momentum off a scrum or lineout, they can be incredibly dangerous.

Do you recognise that gimmick with Joseph and Simmonds? You should – it’ll be a real go-to for England in this game off the lineout.

Simmonds doesn’t have the power of a Stander or Vunipola, but he can move like an extra midfielder when it comes to his pace and strike running ability. England immediately used him as a pivot on lineout moves to great effect. Joseph and Simmonds would run at the 10 channel with Farrell lurking behind the pod and Te’o as the outside strike runner.

England will still roll the dice on sending one carrier/one cleaner into certain set-up rucks and that’s where the likes of Leavy/O’Mahony/Stander can come to the fore.

This game won’t be decided at the breakdown – although it will be important. This game will be decided at the lineout. England’s main threat for generating field position is off midfield lineouts that they’ll look to use like the above. In just 10 minutes, England managed to use two midfield lineouts to trouble the French in ways that eluded them for the previous 60.

And this is where the loss of Lawes will be an issue for England. Jones likes to play three locks in his pack because it gives you three excellent jumping options with one decent tail jumper in Robshaw. Without Lawes, England will have reduced options. Itoje was their main target against France but they often used Lawes as a decoy/lift option on the throws Itoje claimed and vice versa. Lawes is a rangy, athletic jumper – like Itoje – so England have found a lot of joy in combining these two as a lifting pod/decoy pair that can realistically threaten all through the line, such is their pace over the ground and into the air.

Is it going to Itoje or Lawes? This was the question that England likes to pose to their opponents more often than not over the last few games. Have a look at how many times they lift, feint and interact with each other as options;

With no Lawes and just Itoje and Haskell as quick options into the air, Ireland could use Peter O’Mahony, James Ryan and Henderson to attack Hartley’s throw and pressure Itoje. O’Mahony’s presence at the front of the lineout with just one lifter can be massively effective against England’s reduced jumping options. If we can force England to go to Robshaw/Haskell at the tail and disrupt, we take away a large part of their go-forward plans.

From an Irish perspective, we just need to do what we’ve been doing. The narrow phase play and rock-solid ruck support should be enough to drag a few penalties out of Haskell, Robshaw and Sinckler. I think Ireland can go after Te’o and Joseph defensively and target May under the high ball and on the turn. I don’t see us kicking an awful lot though, but England will look to get May/Daly jumping on Keith Earls quite a bit if they can’t find ground through their usual phase play.

It won’t be easy. It probably won’t be pretty. It’ll shred your nerves. It’ll go down to the wire, I’m sure. But these are the special days.

We’re 80 minutes from a Slam. Let’s go get it, yeah?