Rory O'Connor

And then Ireland were then piling in and counter-rooking.

And the big difference between the two sides for me, England picked a back row that are good on the ground, but they didn't get any turnovers.

we picked a back row that is well balanced.

And I thought we got our balance of whether to counter rook, whether to leave the rook or whether to go for the poach.

And we got an amazing return.

You know, you look at Tygburn, there's probably a couple of question marks coming in.

Like he's, he's arguably one of the best in the world at turning ball over on the ground, but he didn't get a whole lot in, in, in France.

Um,

but at the weekend he got the crucial ones like that one on our on our try line to keep England out such a big moment you know so yeah look it was it was a I think when you as well when a team breaks you and you're scrambling back

it can kind of show you where the team is at and it was epitomised by McCluskey chasing down Marcus Smith like you're thinking of big moments defensively that Ireland have had over the last 20 years you know Ferris lifting up Wilgenia it was kind of had that feeling to it when we hacked the ball through if you were to pause it before the player gets into possession you're going right well how many England players are in that picture how many Ireland players are in that picture it was consistently five Irish guys two or three English guys

And then that gave us the luxury to counter-hook or get the turnover.

And our ability to flip the field.

So going from playing or possession being in your half to then being deep into their half.

We did that incredibly well at the weekend.

Yeah, it did.

Focusing on starting off on the aerial contest, what was a big difference was when we were going aerially, we were kicking with momentum.

We'd got England backtracking and that makes a big difference because it's a lot easier to box kick.

The nine has more time, you've more space and then the players that are chasing it, you're running on with more momentum.

The difference from probably the French game to the game against England, our chasers, Tommy O'Brien, Balikin, they're going up looking to

catch it and it is an instinct so if you're going up you're focusing on catching it and maybe at the very last split second you go right the catch isn't on i'm going to go for a slap back but england weren't getting up and dominating the space well enough and we were just winning it clean so that's interesting so you as a winger could very easily when the balls in the air decide regardless of what man in front of me is doing i'm batting this back