RUGBY UNION: SIX NATIONS GREAT WHITE HYPE! England’s air of invincibility is smashed

EDDIE JONES started the Six Nations with a black eye and finished it with a bloody nose.

On a chastening night in the Irish capital, England blew a Grand Slam and gave up the chance to have a world record all to themselves.

Jones, who had come into the championship battered and bruised after falling in his bathroom, accepted f ull responsibility.

“Everything was wrong with our preparation because we played like that,” said the Australian (right), tasting defeat with England for the first time.

“We knew it was going to be a tough, physical game, we just weren’t good enough today.”

Ireland were brilliant in repeating their trick of four months ago, when they denied New Zealand a 19th successive victory.

They scored the game’s only try through lock Iain Henderson as defence coach Andy Farrell came out on top in the battle of wits against son, Owen.

And t hey suffocated England’s much- vaunted attack, which had beaten allcomers since October 2015.

“It wasn’t about the physical battle, it was about indiscipline,” lamented flanker James Haskell.

“You can’t build momentum like that. They played smarter rugby than us.” And they did so from the start, which was everything history told us it would be, and everything England had claimed it would not be. This time would be different, they had said. There would be no repeat of 2011 and their previous Grand Slam mugging. They were now too smart. Well, at no point did it look that way inside the Aviva Stadium, as the super-charged Irish tore into them. The home side had lost Jamie Heaslip in the warm-up to a hamstring injury, joining fellow Lions duo Conor Murray and Rob Kearney on the sidelines. They had seen captain Rory Best forced off early with a head knock, and talisman Johnny Sexton take t wo heavy dents f r om late- hitting English forwards Haskell and Maro Itoje. Yet inspired by late replacement Peter O’Mahony, they simply swarmed over Jones’ men and their lofty ambitions, laughing at a script which barely mentioned them.

It was only when the heroic Sexton kicked Ireland ahead, and Keith Earls came within a spilled ball of making the lead 10 points, that England awoke to reality.

Intensity

Suddenly it became clear to them why England had not scored a Six Nations try in Dublin since 2011. It’s bloody tough in these parts.

We were reminded of Ben Youngs’ pre- match insistence that England are now experienced and “I don’t see us being shocked by another team’s intensity”. But