Irish arrogance gave us the extra edge we needed
BIG Rag’n’Bone Man came into our dressing room on Saturday night and was bouncing along to our victory song.
We live in the same village and go to the same barbers, so it was great to have him with us. He was impressed by the dulcet tones of Dan Cole.
There’s nowhere quite like the dressing room at times like that. You’re with a group of guys who you see at the best and the worst of times and it’s a really unique bond. Our families come in and join us and it feels like a safe place where time just stops.
Owen Farrell and Mako Vunipola came in and joined us. Owen didn’t say too much, he kept his head down. It was probably a bit of a weird situation for him. Mako had a few comments about his latest haircut… he’s reaching the age where he’s better off wearing hats.
It’s hustle and bustle. A combination of relief, excitement, pride, exhaustion. The boys want to take photos together to mark the memory because feelings like that don’t come around often. You have to embrace it.
We caught the bus back to the hotel with our families and I spent the evening drinking red wine with Danny Care and his wife, celebrating his 100th cap. I gave him a bit of grief for passing the ball to Marcus Smith for the drop goal when I was stood about two feet from the line and could have scored my first England try.
I’m not sure how I’d have celebrated. In football you get booked if you take your top off but there’s no precedent for it in rugby. If I ever score a try for England — which is unlikely — I’ll whip my top off and swing it around my head. You heard it here first.
Danny and I thought about going to the pub but we were in Richmond and it would have been rammed. Fortunately, the hotel bar was well stocked. Let’s just say I didn’t make it down in time for breakfast.
You have that night where you are completely buzzing and then you come back in on Monday and there’s a bit of an emotional comedown.
You’re never going to be able to sustain that level of ecstasy so you just have to find a way to go again. We’re flying to Lyon today. We have the plane to ourselves, a chartered flight, plenty of room.
Psychologically it’s a very different situation to how we felt after the defeat by Scotland. There was a lot of criticism being thrown at us before the Ireland match.
You hear what guys like Peter Stringer and Jamie Heaslip are saying. It wasn’t that long ago when Ireland were struggling and those guys were probably questioning the direction of the team. It’s all part of the circus.
There were a few articles that upset us but our biggest fuel was the disappointment of how we played against Scotland. But we don’t want to only play well when we’re bouncing back from having our pants pulled down.
Now we need to stop patting ourselves on the back. We weren’t the worst team in the world after Scotland and we’re not the best team in the world now. But we want to back it up in Lyon.
I watched France’s match against Wales in my hotel room on Sunday with Dan Cole, Ben Earl and George Ford.
Coley and I watch it like fans, admiring the big hits and the scrums, but Fordy’s analysing everything. He’s far smarter than us, taking notes. France took the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half and we were looking at each other thinking, ‘OK, this week’s going to be a tough one’.