It is not every day that England lose a massive home game by a record margin and still feel a quiet pride at the final whistle. If the scoreboard looks lopsided it did not reflect a contest which, in its way, will give the hosts more satisfaction than their victory over Wales last month. Ireland’s Six Nations title hopes remain alive but playing with an extra man for 78 minutes proved significantly less comfortable than they might have expected.
Not until their replacements Jack Conan and Finlay Bealham put an emerald gloss on the margin in the last six minutes did the visitors manage to pull away and secure their four-try bonus point. What might have unfolded had the Bath lock Charlie Ewels not been shown a red card after just 82 seconds is a legitimate debate but there were also moments when a raucous home crowd dared to believe a rugby miracle might just be possible.
It did not pan out that way, leaving England to head to Paris to try to deny France a grand chelem and avoid suffering a second consecutive bottom-half finish. There was more than enough defiance, though, shown by Maro Itoje, Ellis Genge, Sam Simmonds and a number of their teammates to hint at a more hopeful medium term future.
Top-level sport is about retaining composure and Ewels, on this occasion, conspicuously failed the test when he clattered James Ryan with the game barely begun. As red cards go it was absolutely nailed on, and precisely the kind of upright tackle the sport is trying to eradicate. If the crowd should have been sorry for anyone it was Ryan, led groggily away with his own eagerly-awaited afternoon prematurely ended.
The subsequent boos aimed at the referee Mathieu Raynal, sadly, further underlined how many casual rugby fans still need educating on head injury avoidance and the manner in which the laws have now been tightened to assist that aim. Either way, it was the quickest sending-off in championship history and England’s quickest since Mike Burton was dismissed against Australia in 1975 in the infamous Battle of Ballymore.
Given England also lost Tom Curry with a torn hamstring strain and Kyle Sinckler to concussion in the first half, few imagined they would still be in the game at 15-15 with 10 minutes left. There was no disguising the cussedness of the home forwards, with a pumped-up Itoje seemingly intent on making up for Ewels’s absence on his own. Given Itoje was sick during the week, it was one of his more colossal efforts.
The English scrum also had a spectacularly profitable day, with Ireland conceding eight penalties in the first half-hour alone. If there is a caveat it is that England have scored only seven tries in their four games to date, five of them against Italy. Spirit and fortitude is one thing but they will need more than that if they want to win trophies over the next year or two.
They were also helped by the amount of time it took Ireland to twist the knife. In the immediate aftermath of Ewels’s departure it seemed it might be a rout, with Ireland registering their first try though a charging James Lowe after just six minutes. With Jack Nowell deployed as an emergency flanker and the England captain, Courtney Lawes, shunted back into the second row, it was all hands to the pump. Scrum pressure and two safely slotted kicks from three attempts by Marcus Smith, however, kept England afloat until Jamison Gibson-Park opted for a quick tap and the equally alert Hugo Keenan came rocketing up from the backfield to stretch and score.
In the circumstances a third Smith penalty just before the interval to cut the deficit to 15-9 was as much as England could have wished for. New Zealand, in similar circumstances, would probably have been 30 points clear by the hour mark but the Irish, their confidence at scrum time now seriously dented, began to wobble badly. The home supporters could sense it and when another excellent kick chase from Freddie Steward and Joe Marchant forced another kickable penalty, Smith reduced the gap to just three points with 27 minutes to play.
By now the entire stadium had come alive, roaring with delight as Itoje clattered Johnny Sexton following another nicely judged English up and under. This will be Sexton’s final championship appearance in south-west London and he will not remember this fixture for the quality of the armchair ride.
Here, too, was another reminder of why England had won 22 of their previous 25 Six Nations games in their own steepling backyard. They collectively seemed to grow another forest of limbs and, despite changing two thirds of their front row, Ireland’s scrum travails continued. With Will Stuart now at tighthead England made further incursions on Dave Kilcoyne’s side of the scrum and Smith’s fifth penalty brought the scores dramatically level.
The place almost erupted when it momentarily looked as if Sexton’s long pass had been picked off by Steward for a potentially game-changing interception try. Alas for the home crowd Monsieur Raynal decided England had slowed down the ball at the previous ruck and Sexton’s simple penalty re-established Ireland’s three-point advantage before English legs grew weary and Conan and Bealham applied the muscular coup de grâce. To snatch the title Ireland now need to beat Scotland and hope England do them a big favour in Paris but they will not forget this feverish Saturday night in a hurry.
