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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Michael Scully

Family friendly captain's run fuels sense of wellbeing around Ireland's Grand Slam bid

There's no sign of nerves or tension showing in Ireland's Grand Slam chasing camp after a fun-filled captain's run at the Aviva Stadium ahead of Saturday's Six Nations clash with England.

There is a championship crown on the line for the hosts but you wouldn't have known it, given the presence of family for the relaxed run out at the Lansdowne Road ground.

Children of the players, and of the coaching and support staff, were present and delighted to get autographs with just over 24 hours to go to the big kick-off.

Yesterday, head coach Andy Farrell had spoken of his plan to get his grandchildren Tommy and Freddie - his son Owen's two boys - down to the session and they were there enjoying the proceedings. Owen was restored to England's line-up last night.

Ireland assistant coach Mike Catt explained the reasoning behind the families attending the captain's run.

"A hell of a lot of sacrifice goes in from players, coaches, backroom staff, so it's always a nice little touch for families to come in and see what mum and dad does," said Catt.

"It's great to experience the opportunity, especially at the Aviva before the big noise happens tomorrow. It's great they can get here.

"St Patrick's Day helps as they're all off school so it has fallen nicely. It's brilliant having the kids here because it has been a long eight weeks, or is it 12 weeks - whatever it is now since Portugal.

"There's a lot of sacrifice that goes in there and it's great to have families in."

Catt confirmed that there were no late injury concerns ahead of the game and revealed that Garry Ringrose, who suffered a nasty looking head injury in last Sunday's win against Scotland, took a small part in the session.

"Garry was jogging around a little bit but he's doing the return to play after last weekend," said Catt, who added that it was Ringrose who presented reigning world player of the year Josh van der Flier with his 50th cap last night ahead of the game.

And as for the pressure that might be on this Ireland team to continue a winning streak that goes back to New Zealand in July, Catt said everything was under control in terms of the hype and outside noise.

“No, I think the expectation is within ourselves," said the attack coach.

Conor Murray, Cian Healy, Peter O’Mahony and Johnny Sexton share a joke for the official team photo (©INPHO/Dan Sheridan)

"We went out to be in this position and fortunately we’ve come through some real tough games to be in this position so, for me, there’s enough expectation.

"We don’t need to worry about anything else. We know what we need to do. The players understand what they need to do and it’s now being able to go and do it tomorrow afternoon.

“So, the pressure hasn’t ramped up at all. We love being where we are, like any other team would be, but we are coming up against a hell of an England side. There’s no bones about it, it’s going to be a proper Test match. A tough Test match."

Asked if Ireland were tapping into the fact that they are facing the Auld Enemy on St Patrick's weekend, Catt replied: "Are we tapping into it? I mean, it's going to be a great weekend.

"I think the fans have been amazing, the way the boys have played has definitely gripped the nation in terms of the success we've had over the past year.

"But again as a group, we're not going to get too emotional over the whole thing. It's a game of rugby and all we're doing is chasing our potential and making sure that we can be ourselves in this environment.

"It's pretty much what we spoke about all week in terms of go and be the best version of yourself, get out there and go and play and don't worry about the occasion, that's got nothing to do with it, really.

"It's about you being the best version of a rugby player that you can possibly be.

"The atmosphere, I think you can feel the buzz in the city already, it's amazing. You want to be in games like this, you want to be part of big things like this, it's the reason we do the job and the players do their jobs.

"You've got to thrive in this intensity, it's brilliant."

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