It was scripted to be this way and so it has come to pass. Ireland v England, the Aviva Stadium, next Saturday on St Patrick’s weekend, and an attempt to seal a Grand Slam in Dublin for the first time ever, in what will be Johnny Sexton’s last-ever Six Nations match.
It just had to be, although this Irish team had to withstand all manner of upheavals to eventually subdue Scotland by 22-7 in Murrayfeld. Resourceful and resilient in equal order, their performance was hailed by Andy Farrell as the most remarkable of its type he has ever been involved in.
“Surprise me? Probably not,” he answered when asked if he was surprised by Ireland’s display in the face of such adversity. They lost three of their starting pack by the 26th minute, and their replacement hooker early in the second half, so playing the last half-hour with a flanker (who else but Josh van der Flier?) taking the throw-ins and a prop, Cian Healy, at hooker for the last half-hour. During this time, they scoffed 14 unanswered points.
“It was immense, the character,” said Farrell. “It wasn’t champagne rugby, but in terms of character, fight and want for each other – that’s the best game I’ve been involved in.
“If you’d have seen us at half-time, honestly you’d have laughed because all the lads were laughing. It was organised chaos. We didn’t know what was happening until the last second about whether Rónan was coming back on.
“We made half a plan with Cian going to scrummage, because he’s good at that and that paid off for us. Josh throwing in, well, what can’t he do? He took up golf three years ago and he’s in single figures on his handicap.
“I just thought for somebody like Garry [Ringrose] on his 50th cap, that we’re able to do a special performance with all the controversy,” he said, presumably meaning to say “consternation”.
“Someone like Garry deserves something like that to look back on.”
Alas, Ringrose’s 50th cap ended when he was stretchered off after seemingly being knocked out as his head collided with Blair Kinghorn’s hip in a tackle. After a lengthy and worrying stoppage when he was treated by half a dozen medics before being stretchered off, the main concern of course is his health and wellbeing.
Encouragingly, he was talking to Farrell post-match but, somewhat cruelly, will now miss out on potentially one of the most momentous days in the history of Irish rugby.
With just a six-day turnaround before facing an English team which suffered a chastening, record 53-10 defeat at Twickenham against a rampant France on Saturday, there will also be concerns over Ireland’s other injury casualties in Murrayfield, namely Caelan Doris (back), Dan Sheehan (stinger), and especially Iain Henderson (wrist) and Rónan Kelleher (shoulder).
“Garry is up and talking, a little bit dazed. So, he’s taking his time, trying to come around. He’s not in the dressing-room, he’s in the medical room.
“Caelan Doris, we’d a double whammy in that regard with the try getting chalked off for them using a fresh ball,” added Farrell, in reference to Doris suffering his injury in stealing a quick Scottish throw with a different ball, which meant Sheehan’s finish was disallowed.
“I don’t know what advantage we got from that, but anyway. We lost Caelan in the midst of it, so hopefully he’s going to be okay [for next week],” said the Ireland head coach, sounding reasonably optimistic.
“Iain Henderson’s in a cast already with his wrist. Dan Sheehan, the X-ray is okay on his shoulder. We’re hopeful on him. Rónan, he injured his shoulder again. It’s similar to what he did in France last year. No power, etc. That’s shutdown.”
Thankfully Sexton seemingly emerged unscathed from his 70 minutes or so, despite putting his body on the line repeatedly, as he does.
“We were well motivated for the game,” said the Irish captain. “When you’ve got coaches like Andy and Pauly talking to you all week, you can’t but be motivated.
“We know what we want to achieve in this competition, we’re motivated for it and we just had to dig in. And we spoke about it last night, that there’d be times we’d have to dig in.”
Nor could Sexton conceal his sense of pride in captaining this special Irish team.
“It’s a great group of lads so leading them is very special. Who wouldn’t be proud? Even just playing for Ireland to win a Grand Slam would be something.
“It’s going to be a big week, there’s going to be plenty of hype, there’s going to be lots of distractions – tickets and family and all that – and we need to really get down to business and get a big performance. They’re going to be hurting, they’re going to be wanting to show what playing for England means to them and they’re a good team, a better team than they showed yesterday. So it’s going to be a really tough game.”
Sexton also moved level with Ronan O’Gara as the all-time leading point scorer in the Championship’s history on 557 points in his penultimate Six Nations game, thereby adding another subplot to next Saturday’s finale.
“Yeah, Rog will be trying to pay me off to retire now,” said a smiling Sexton. “It’s obviously a nice thing, hopefully I can get back on the pitch next week and, like I said, it’s all about winning. These other things come along but they are not at the forefront of my mind.”
No, certainly not. But we all know what will be this week.
