Ireland 27; England 22
Simon Easterby got his Interim Head Coach era off to a winning start after his side overcame a poor first half in which England dominated to lead by 10-5 at the interval.
Indeed Easterby was quick to praise the determination of his charges in how they overcame adversity to score four tries and get a bonus point victory at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday evening.
It means the green ambition to win an unprecedented three championships in a row is still alive as they prepare to head to Murrayfield for Sunday’s encounter with the Scots who huffed and puffed before beating Italy by 31-19 in Edinburgh.
Referring to Ireland’s route to victory, Easterby said on RTE after the game: “We had to find a way. I thought we played well in patches in the first half, we didn't quite get our accuracy right, and that's probably why the scoreline was in their favor.
“I think the first half, it's the first round of the Six Nations, England here in Dublin, it's always going to be a bit of an arm-wrestle. It's nothing we didn't expect. We felt at half time if we did a few things better, that we would get the rewards, and we did that. Like I say, our accuracy. We had lots of opportunities in their 22, but didn't quite make the most of them. They defended well and made it tough for us.
“I think on reflection we'll be happy with the way our set piece went, and we set up some lovely opportunities through that. Up until the last couple of minutes, defense was OK. We know we need to be better next weekend,” he emphasized.
Easterby was happy with how his two outhalves played with Sam Prendergast starting at 10, before Jack Crowley came in with 22 minutes to play and did really well.
He said: “I thought Sam was excellent at times, he really created a couple of nice opportunities. We felt like in the Autumn that Jack came on and impacted the Australia game and he did the same again and finished the game off well.”
Looking forward to the Scotland match, the Interim boss stated: “It's never easy going up there, they're coming off the back of a win as well but we need to make sure we get better at the things we know we can and it will be important that we don't deviate too far away from what's worked for us this week.
“But it's an important place to go and get a result, it's somewhere where we've had a little bit of success in the last few years but we know it's going to be incredibly tough."
SCORERS
Ireland - Tries: Jamison Gibson-Park, Bundee Aki, Tadhg Beirne, Dan Sheehan Cons: Jack Crowley (2) Pen: Sam Prendergast (1)
England – Tries: Cadan Murley, Tom Curry, Tommy Freeman Cons: Marcus Smith (2) Pens: Marcus Smith (1)
Ireland: H Keenan; M Hansen, G Ringrose, B Aki, J Lowe; S Prendergast, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, R Kelleher, F Bealham; J Ryan, T Beirne; R Baird, J van der Flier, C Doris (capt) Replacements: D Sheehan (for Kelleher, 48), C Healy (for Porter, 74), T Clarkson (for Bealham, 58), I Henderson (for Ryan, 61), J Conan (for Baird, 48), C Murray (for Gibson-Park, 74), J Crowley (for Prendergast, 58), R Henshaw (for Hansen, 4-16 [blood] and for Aki, 57).
