Ireland out to avoid third straight defeat to old enemy in potential Six Nations decider
Ireland and England both won their opening Six Nations games last weekend and, with France suffering a shock defeat to Italy, Sunday’s clash at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin between these two old foes will surely put one of them in pole position to land this year’s Championship and the Grand Slam – if, of course, it doesn’t finish as a draw.
The boys in green looked on course for a routine victory against Wales last week only for the Red Dragons to come back roaring in the second half and seemingly only run out of time to close down the deficit. The score finished 30-22 to the visitors.
After conceding an early try to Scotland, England cruised to a comfortable 38-18 win and will head to Dublin looking for their third win in a row against Ireland.
In the last two fixtures Ireland have scored exactly nine points with England winning by margins of 11 points and 21 points.
Stuart Lancaster’s men haven’t beaten Declan Kidney’s side in the Six Nations in Ireland since 2003, though.
Overall, Ireland have won seven of the last ten meetings anywhere but Ireland have won only 29 of the 64 matches played on home soil, with the Red Rose winning 31 and the other four draws.
Despite being the second all-time leading points scorers in Six Nations history, Ireland have only lifted the title once in 2009. England have hit the most tries in the competition's history and after France (five) have won the most titles with four.
Lancaster’s luck doesn’t look like changing ahead of All Blacks’ visit
England’s difficult week is about to get a whole lot harder as they sign off their autumn international series against world champions New Zealand. Not only has Stuart Lancaster had to field some tough questions on the back of Chris Robshaw’s decision to go for three points with time expiring, but Toby Flood is unavailable because of an injured toe.
The Red Rose have been made to pay for some poor decision making in their past two Tests and they know full well they cannot make the same mistakes on Saturday. It’s been nine straight internationals since England overcame the All Blacks and the visitors have convincingly won all three of their matches on this tour.
New Zealand’s average winning margin during the 2012 autumn international series currently stands at 28 points. While England’s past nine defeats at the hands of the All Blacks have been by an average of 20 points.
Try shy Aussies are no match for England
England’s Autumn International series gets going for real when Australia visit Twickenham. The Aussies are a shadow of their former selves and Robbie Deans is under all sorts of pressure after seeing his side get smashed in Paris last Saturday.
France ran out 33-6 winners in Paris as the Wallabies failed to win a second straight game. Anyone looking at the time of the first try for the tourists may have spotted that the defeat in France was the second straight international that Australia have failed to cross the white line.
Chris Ashton will likely return to the starting XV having served his ban and the winger has had his own scoring troubles. It’s been seven internationals since he last scored, but he bagged a brace when Australia were last in London – including a memorable breakaway try from his own half.
More late goals for England?
Steven Gerrard is set to become only the sixth England player to make 100 appearances for his country when England take on Sweden on Wednesday evening. Roy Hogdson’s squad has a very different look to it given that five regular starters have pulled out because of injury. Leon Osman, Wilfried Zaha and Raheem Sterling are all in line for their first cap.
This will be the first time these nations have met since that memorable 3-2 win at the European Championships. Danny Welbeck scored a brilliant winner 12 minutes from time and late goals have been a feature of recent England matches. The average time of England’s last goal over the past five internationals currently stands at 71 minutes.
Sweden also have a habit of late goals and they completed an incredible comeback from 4-0 down against Germany last time out. The equalising goal arrived in the 90th minute and the average time of Sweden’s last goal across the past three matches is 85.
Three Lions can maintain dominance over Poles
England were expected to hammer San Marino and that’s exactly what they did on Friday evening to get this two match run off to a decent start. Everyone knew that the real test would be in Poland on Tuesday evening as Roy Hodgson hopes to cement their place at the top of Group H.
The Three Lions’ 5-0 win meant that the side are now unbeaten in 15 successive internationals. Further encouragement for those supporters making the trip to Warsaw can be found in England’s vastly superior head-to-head record over Poland. The Three Lions have not lost against the Poles for 14 matches – a run including nine victories.
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