Hurt of Calcutta Cup loss a huge motivating factor for England ahead of Ireland victory
England centre Ollie Lawrence celebrates after scoring a try against Ireland.
England centre Ollie Lawrence said their stunning triumph over Ireland at Twickenham on Saturday was fuelled by their disappointing Calcutta Cup defeat to Scotland in Round Three.
The Red Rose delivered a superb all-round performance en route to a deserved 23-22 victory courtesy of a last-gasp drop goal from replacement fly-half Marcus Smith after the Irish thought they won the game courtesy of a 73rd-minute try from James Lowe.
Ireland’s Six Nations Grand Slam dream ruined
The result had dire consequences for Andy Farrell’s charges as it also ruined their dream of winning a Six Nations Grand Slam for the second successive year.
England matched their more fancied opponents in all departments and Lawrence revealed that they were highly motivated to secure victory after they failed to impress in their previous match against Scotland.
“We’re happy with the win. Coming to Twickenham, back home, it was really important for us to bounce back after the Scotland game,” said the Bath centre, who scored the first of his side’s three tries.
“We were really frustrated and disappointed that we didn’t put in our best performance up there. There was a lot of frustration in camp.
“We left a lot out there so our mindset coming into this game was that we’re playing against the best team in the world here. This is our home ground, let’s take it to them and bring the physicality and let’s have a go.
“Last week in training we worked a lot on our kick return and our counter attack, which is an important element of our game, but we didn’t really show it against Scotland.
Marcus Smith drop-goal denies Ireland back-to-back Six Nations Grand Slams as England shine
“It was a shift in mindset – let’s shift the ball and have a go at these teams because we’ve got such good players but we need to utilise them.
“We got the balance right against Ireland; that’s the reason we got the result we did.”
England were overwhelming underdogs against Ireland, who were on course to become the first team since France in 1997 and 1998 to win back-to-back Grand Slams – although the French achieved it before Italy’s introduction.
‘Heading in the right direction’
However, Steve Borthwick’s troops did not read the script and outplayed their Irish opponents with Smith clinching their triumph with the final act of the match.
“There was a lot of external noise that we did touch on throughout the week. A lot of focus was on trying to shut that up, but also trying to ignore it as much as we can,” Lawrence said.
“Because when you play well for England, everyone is behind you, and when you don’t get the result you want, everyone can be on your back.
“As a team we tried to stay as close as we could and ignore that. Playing at home against Ireland showed we’re heading in the right direction.
“The title discussion will be outside noise. All we can do is go to France and try to win that game. That will be our focus for the week.
“We will probably look back and rue that result against Scotland. Fine margins, we didn’t perform that day, but we did today, so it’s a step forward.”
