England are still hoping Tom Curry and Alex Dombrandt will be available to face Ireland after both forwards were included in a 26-man squad for this weekend's penultimate Six Nations weekend. Wasps's uncapped forward Alfie Barbeary, though, has been retained as cover with his club-mate Joe Launchbury poised for his first matchday involvement of this year's tournament at the expense of Saracens's Nick Isiekwe.
Curry came off at half-time against Wales after failing a head injury assessment while Dombrandt has been in isolation since testing positive for Covid-19 last Friday. The absence of the fit-again Sam Underhill suggests England remain optimistic about Curry’s prognosis, with Exeter’s Sam Simmonds on hand to join the starting backrow if Dombrandt cannot train on Thursday.
It is more than possible that England will field a mere four starting survivors from last year’s 32-18 defeat in Dublin when Ireland took a firm early grip and never let go. With the Vunipola brothers dropped, Mark Wilson having retired and injury having sidelined five others, it may be that only Curry, Kyle Sinckler, Maro Itoje and Charlie Ewels kick off both games.
The hosts are already braced for a seriously physical encounter amid suggestions Twickenham could witness a "bar room brawl" on Saturday. The former Irish coach Eddie O'Sullivan believes the home side will be wanting to make a no-nonsense statement and England's prop Joe Marler also anticipates a "ding-dong" contest this weekend.
Potentially dangerous
O’Sullivan’s view is that England are potentially dangerous opponents because they will be desperate not to finish in the championship’s bottom half for a second consecutive season. “If they lose their last two Six Nations games it will be very difficult,” O’Sullivan told BBC Radio Ulster. “They need a result and for that reason they are very dangerous. This will be a bar room brawl and we need to be ready for it.”
Marler, England’s most seasoned forward, does not disagree with him. “It’s probably a fair assumption. A nice, clean bar brawl, though, none of the dirty stuff. No gouging or glass-throwing, just the clean stuff. They are very aggressive at the breakdown and love chucking numbers in there. So it is going to be a ding-dong.”
For that reason, according to the 31-year-old Marler, there has been an extra edge to England training in Bagshot with Eddie Jones’s side facing daunting fixtures against Ireland and France on successive weekends. “There’s definitely a bigger sense of ‘Okay, Ireland are very good’. With the greatest respect Wales were missing a fair few names. There was probably a little more expectation on us to win that game whereas Ireland are full bore and have been together for some time now. It was definitely noticeable in training.”
Marler, though, also says he can barely recall England not being the favourites to win at home, as Jones has been suggesting this week. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt like an underdog at Twickenham . . . maybe against New Zealand once. [But] we know how good they are so we have to be right on the money.
“We’ll have to be sugar hot in order to get the win. Most games are won by the most physically dominant team. We’ll need to win that battle in order to put them under enough pressure to give us time to put our game on the park.”
