Incredible Ireland shock Twickenham in Six Nations stunner as England embarrassed
Ireland celebrate try v England in 2026 Six Nations.
Claims of Ireland’s demise were shown to be premature at Twickenham on Saturday as they produced a stunning performance to hammer England 42-21.
From start to finish, the visitors were absolutely outstanding as they crossed the whitewash five times against a sluggish English side.
Ireland built a 22-0 lead after half-an-hour through Jamison Gibson-Park, Robert Baloucoune and Tommy O’Brien tries before the Red Rose hit back through Fraser Dingwall.
But the hosts were bettered in pretty much every area by an Irish side that simply obliterated their opponents in the physical battle.
Two more tries from Dan Sheehan and Jamie Osborne, plus a couple of Jack Crowley three-pointers, sealed a superb win to keep them in the Six Nations title hunt.
England did go over through Ollie Lawrence and Sam Underhill but, after their poor performance against Scotland, this was another embarrassing display.
Sheer Irish dominance
There has been plenty of talk that this ageing Ireland side are on the wane but, judging by this performance, they are anything but.
The opening half-hour was an absolute statement from Andy Farrell’s men, who were superb and ripped England’s dreadful defence to shreds.
Their fluency, which had been missing for the past 12 months, returned and they scored three times in 10 first-half minutes after a relatively quiet first quarter.
Although there was not too much action in scoring terms, with just a Crowley penalty after eight minutes, it laid the platform for what was to come.
Gibson-Park was the conductor in the mayhem and his tap penalty was too quick for England, giving the scrum-half an easy run to the line.
It demonstrated all that was good about the visitors and all that was bad about their opponents. While the Irishmen were intelligent and slick, Steve Borthwick’s team were laboured and dumb.
With Ireland returning to their 2022 and 2023 form, they were creating chances at will and a Stuart McCloskey break from a weak Ollie Lawrence tackle set up their next try. The centre was hauled down just short of the line but Gibson-Park was on hand to allow Baloucoune to cross the whitewash unopposed.
The scrum-half managed to get the ball out to the wing despite Freddie Steward illegally grabbing hold of him at the breakdown and the full-back was duly sin-binned as a result.
England had struggled with 15 men and they were even more porous with 14 as from the restart Josh van der Flier broke through. Although that attack came to nothing, moments later Ireland manufactured another fine move, which resulted in Baloucoune sending O’Brien, who had come on for the injured James Lowe, over the line.
It was getting to the point of embarrassment for the English but they did stem the bleeding when Dingwall gave them hope on the stroke of half-time.
That was only brief, however, as the start of the second period saw Caelan Doris easily swat aside Ellis Genge and run fully 30 metres up field.
Under pressure, the hosts once again infringed, with Henry Pollock this time being yellow carded, and moments later Sheehan secured the bonus-point.
It was already a long way back for England at that point and it ultimately proved to be insurmountable, despite Lawrence’s try and Osborne’s sin-binning.
The Irish were men possessed and they controlled that 10-minute period brilliantly with Crowley’s three-pointer the only score during that time.
Osborne then returned from the naughty step to touch down and complete a wonderful afternoon for Farrell and Ireland, although the visitors had the final word through Underhill.
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The teams
England: 15 Freddie Steward, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Fraser Dingwall, 11 Henry Arundell, 10 George Ford, 9 Alex Mitchell, 8 Henry Pollock, 7 Ben Earl, 6 Tom Curry, 5 Ollie Chessum, 4 Maro Itoje (c), 3 Joe Heyes, 2 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 1 Ellis Genge
Replacements: 16 Jamie George, 17 Bevan Rodd, 18 Trevor Davison, 19 Alex Coles, 20 Guy Pepper, 21 Sam Underhill, 22 Jack van Poortvliet, 23 Marcus Smith
Ireland: 15 Jamie Osborne, 14 Rob Baloucoune, 13 Garry Ringrose, 12 Stuart McCloskey, 11 James Lowe, 10 Jack Crowley, 9 Jamison Gibson-Park, 8 Caelan Doris (c), 7 Josh van der Flier, 6 Tadhg Beirne, 5 James Ryan, 4 Joe McCarthy, 3 Tadhg Furlong, 2 Dan Sheehan, 1 Jeremy Loughman
Replacements: 16 Ronan Kelleher, 17 Tom O’Toole, 18 Finlay Bealham, 19 Nick Timoney, 20 Cian Prendergast, 21 Craig Casey, 22 Ciaran Frawley, 23 Tommy O’Brien
Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR)
Assistant Referees: Pierre Brousset (FFR), Gianluca Gnecchi (FIR)
TMO: Matteo Liperini (FIR)
FPRO:Mike Adamson (SRU)
READ MORE: Six Nations, England v Ireland: Result, match details, stats, line-ups