Lancaster’s car park walk axed by players

ENGLAND will make another break from recent tradition when they park the bus at Twickenham today, before hurling themselves into a ‘proper Test match’ against Ireland. New head coach Eddie Jones left it to his players to decide whether they wanted to persist with the ritual — devised by the Stuart Lancaster regime — of climbing off the bus in the West Car Park at HQ and walking through crowds into the stadium. But they have chosen to abandon the short-lived ploy, on the basis that they will gladly mingle with supporters after facing the RBS 6 Nations title-holders. Amid a general stripping-away of various innovations devised in the last few years, England captain Dylan Hartley said: ‘It’s all hype, it’s all sideshow. The support is brilliant and I love the fact we’re in familiar territory: at home, our turf. But all we are worrying about is winning the game.’ Hartley said the bus would be parked ‘as close as we can get’ to the stadium, adding: ‘We can see out of the windows that the support is there. I’ve talked to my senior players who, like me, want to get into the changing room and get the job under way. We can walk through the crowds afterwards.’ Under Jones, England have opted to remove some of the motivational slogans and pictures from the walls of their indoor training centre and they have also updated the imagery on a wall of their changing room at Twickenham. ‘Come match-day I’m not thinking about what’s written on the wall, I’m thinking about my job and how the team’s going to win,’ said Hartley. The England skipper is aware that today’s encounter will be a step up from what they faced against Scotland and Italy. ‘Now we’ve got those two games out of the way we can play a proper Test match, at Twickenham, against the holders,’ he said. In the build-up to today’s showdown, Jones has tried to unsettle Ireland by questioning their tactics and the selection of injury-prone Jonathan Sexton. Responding to the mind games yesterday, Ireland captain Rory Best said: ‘It’s not the way we go about our business. As time goes on, more and more people try to start this gamesmanship. ‘There has been a lot made in the past that teams have targeted Johnny or said things about him and I’m sure it will happen in the future. He is a big boy and he can deal with it.’ Johnny thrives on the big occasion and this at Twickenham in front of 80,000 is one of them. I think you will see that.’