Ireland have work to do for Six Nations Test against England, Andy Farrell says

DUBLIN – Ireland have a “bit of fixing to do” if they want to keep their Six Nations Grand Slam bid on course against England after a comfortable, but not entirely satisfactory, 31-7 victory over Wales on Feb 24, coach Andy Farrell said.

Although Ireland made it three bonus-point wins from three and boast a plus-81 points difference that shows their dominance, Farrell said his side would be “licking their wounds a little bit” watching the remaining weekend action.

He was critical of his team’s passiveness in attack in the first half and failure to take advantage of their dominance in the scrum, but praised the huge impact of his forward-heavy pack in earning the bonus point late on at the Aviva Stadium.

“I suppose the bottom line is we got there in the end by being really tenacious and tough. We wanted to be better today, but the opposition always have a say in that and Wales certainly did today,” Farrell said.

“We’ve a bit of fixing to do and hopefully we can get better for Twickenham.”

Dan Sheehan, James Lowe, Ciaran Frawley and Tadhg Beirne crossed the line for Ireland, with their other points coming from the boot of Jack Crowley. Wales’ points came from a penalty try.

While Ireland are victories over England and Scotland away from a second successive championship clean sweep, Wales face the prospect of a potential final-day wooden-spoon decider against Italy, should they fail to upset France on March 10.

Coach Warren Gatland said his inexperienced team could take a huge amount from the performance, likening it to his time as a player with Waikato in New Zealand, where they suffered big losses to Auckland before turning the tables on their rivals.

“I can’t question the effort of the players and just how hard they worked,” Gatland told a news conference, saying the scoreline reflected the greater experience of the Irish side.

“We’ve said all along that it’s about the development of this team. It’s making sure that we keep working as hard as we’ve been doing, keep getting better. It’s all about the learning for us.”

England, meanwhile, will head into their clash with Ireland on March 9 licking their wounds after their own Grand Slam hopes went up in smoke.

Scotland coach Gregor Townsend hailed Duhan van der Merwe’s “really special” hat-trick after the winger rewrote the record books in a 30-21 Six Nations win over England on Feb 24.

Never before in the 153-year history of rugby union’s oldest international fixture had a Scotland player scored three tries in a single game.

But van der Merwe changed all that at Murrayfield Stadium, with the Edinburgh flyer’s treble helping Scotland overturn an early 10-0 deficit as they enjoyed a fourth successive win over England, something they had not achieved in all games since 1972.

“He was great today,” said Townsend of van der Merwe, who ended the match one short of Stuart Hogg’s all-time Scotland record of 27 tries.

“He just saw opportunities and went for it.

“I’ll be winding him up later to say they were just run-ins. But a couple of the run-ins were from quite far, to be fair – it was really special.”

Scotland’s win, well orchestrated by co-captain Finn Russell, who kicked their remaining 15 points, meant they rebounded from an agonising loss to France and put themselves back in Six Nations title contention with two wins from three games following a tense 27-26 success away to Wales in the first round.

England crossed the line via George Furbank and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, while the rest of their points came from George Ford’s boot.

Said England skipper Jamie George: “Ireland are a great team, we know that. But we’re going to be a very tough team to beat at Twickenham...

“The fact we are back at Twickenham hugely excites me. We want to make it a hard place for opposition to come to.” REUTERS, AFP