Delight for Inst, St Mary’ s Magherafelt and Grosvenor GS in Schools Cup finals
IRELAND skipper Rory Best has called on his side to finally derail England’s charge when they meet in the Aviva Stadium today (5.00pm kick-off ).
Eddie Jones’s men will take the field in Dublin with a second consecutive Grand Slam and world record winning streak on the line, as they chase a 19th successive victory while Ireland are not only playing for pride after having their own title dreams ended in Cardiff last week.
If they lose and Wales beat France in Paris then they will drop out of the top four in the world rankings and lose their top seeding in May’s World Cup 2019 pool draw. Best recognised that the game is about more than derailing the England chariot when he said: “We’re well aware of what they are going for.
“But for us, I suppose it’s St Paddy’s weekend, we’re at home and we have a very proud record at home as well, and we take huge confidence from that.
“We have focused on how to beat England, we haven’t focused on the reasons why we’ll beat them.
“We’ll beat England because we’re pulling on a green jersey, because we’re at home and we expect probably a better, more consistent performance over the 80 minutes than we’ve delivered so far in this Championship.
“They’re playing for a Grand Slam, but we’ve got a home record we want to keep intact.
“There has been a lot made about this game so there is pressure on from that side for us.
“Look, ultimately we want to finish with a massive result. I don’t think that their want is any more than ours.”