The second half of Ireland’s opening match of the Six Nations provided a window into the declining standards in the English Premiership.
As every national team is the product of the system that sits below it, in the early days of the 21st century, when the Leicester side captained by Martin Johnson reigned supreme, England were world champions. In 2016, 2017 and 2020, the same years that Saracens dominated European rugby, England won the Six Nations title.
Today as the standards inside the English Premiership have fallen off, it is no surprise that so too have the performances of their national team.
Of the eight English clubs in the Champions Cup, Northampton were the only ones to top their pool and none finished second. Compare that to France, who had five club teams in either first or second position in their pools.
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France have selected players predominately from Toulouse, Bordeaux, La Rochelle and Toulon, who are either first or second in their pools.
The only Northampton players England selected last week were their scrumhalf Alex Mitchell and winger Tommy Freeman. All the other England players had been drawn from clubs that have not been winning at the elite level of European rugby.
Exeter Chiefs have declined to such an extent that they did not win a pool match, while Bath and Bristol won solitary games. Sale, Saracens, Harlequins and Leicester could only manage a 50 per cent win record, with the once mighty Tigers conceding a humiliating 80 points to Toulouse.
Last week Ireland benefited from selecting 17 of their match-day 23 from Leinster, who are dominating the URC and have topped their pool in the Champions Cup. Like Toulouse and Bordeaux, Leinster have a large squad. This allows these clubs to rotate their players so they are not forced to play every match. The financial plight within the English Premiership does not permit the English clubs that luxury.
The popular belief is that players who are not selected at club level are being rested. In reality, the opposite occurs. These players are pushed through several days of extreme physical training at intensities significantly above what they will experience in a match.
Strength and conditioning coaches have calculated the average number of sprints, tackles, scrums, breakdowns and lineouts each individual player performs in a match.
They then take these statistics and create individual training programmes that push the players beyond those figures. This means that the intensity of playing a match is below the intensity of what the players experience at training.
So a “rested” player returns to competition with increased levels of fitness.
Around the 50-minute mark of last week’s Six Nations match at the Aviva the fuel tanks inside the English players started to hit the red. Despite their bravery, which is not in question, the realities of sports science kicked in and Ireland cranked up several gears that the English simply did not have.
While it is rugby 101, the fact remains that the English players' fitness levels are inferior to that of the Irish and the French. The blame rests with the English clubs, not Steve Borthwick.
At Twickenham against France the second half may get ugly for the English.
Scotland are now in a similar situation to Ireland. The spectacular rise in standards set by Glasgow, who won the URC last May and finished in second place in their Champions Cup pool, have lifted the performances of the national team.
As Ireland are using a game plan similar to that implemented by Leinster, Scotland are also using a plan familiar to Glasgow.
Winning and losing are habits. Once they are ingrained inside an organisation’s DNA, teams will either find courageous ways to win or maddeningly ridiculous ways to lose. As a group, Glasgow have become habitual winners.
Despite this, that winning habit is not yet culturally ingrained fully within the Scotland team.
In recent seasons Scotland have played sensational rugby in defeating high-quality English and French teams away, only to toss both of those wins on to the fire by surrendering to a below average Welsh outfit at Murrayfield.
Scotland are consistently inconsistent.
On their day, with a full 80-minute effort, this Scotland team are more than capable of defeating Ireland. With a mature Finn Russell combining with the exceptional pace of Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe, Scotland have the weapons to score match-defining long-range tries.
In last week’s win over Italy, they showed both their class and their flaws. In taking a strong 19-9 lead they had the ever improving Italians all but defeated. But Scotland then lost concentration and invited the Italians back into the match as they drew even at 19-19 at the 65-minute mark.
While Scotland regained composure and secured a 31-19 victory, any similar mental lapses against Ireland will not be overcome so easily.
Sunday’s result will hang on which Scotland team turns up. The group that won at Twickenham and Stade de France, or the mob who crumbled to a weak Wales.
For both teams this is a championship-defining match. If Ireland can repeat their second-half performance from last week, then only France appear to have the firepower to hold them. Yet, if Scotland can put together 80 minutes of total concentration, which they have not done for many seasons, then they are capable of a historic victory.
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With a dry day forecast, running rugby will be high on the agenda. Inside the majestic setting of the Murrayfield stadium, the two Celtic cousins will be playing attacking rugby, belting each other for bragging rights.
All we need are the glorious tones of the great Bill McLaren entertaining us with his classic descriptions to make it feel like we are back to the excitement of the halcyon days of the Ireland v Scotland classics of the 1980s.
Ireland by a bagpipes' wheeze.
