Neal Hatley insists he has been drilling a pack of “angry” forwards this week as England look to end their Six Nations by ruining Ireland’s Grand Slam bid.
Successive defeats to Scotland and France have placed Eddie Jones’ men under intense pressure as they seek to protect an unbeaten home record at Twickenham in the tournament that dates back to 2012.
The losses in Edinburgh and Paris exposed breakdown shortcomings and England have prioritised finding the solution to that problem in their quest to mute any St Patrick’s Day celebrations.
“I’d say our forwards are angry and I’d say they’re competitive as well. Our training is competitive every day because people are scrapping for places,” scrum coach Hatley said.
“There’s obviously a certain bit of anger over what’s happened across the last two weeks, which is what you’d expect from this group of players.
“You learn from losing. There have been big lessons for us to take and we have to make sure that we learn them quickly.
“We’ve tried to rectify the breakdown by working hard in training. We’ve talked about it for two weeks, we’re not hiding from it. We know it’s an area we have to improve in.
“We’ve put lots of work into it over the last two weeks and more this week. It’s about the way we carry the ball and our speed to the breakdown.”
Among the seven changes in personnel England have made for the visit of Ireland is a significant call at tighthead prop, where the combustible Kyle Sinckler has replaced an underperforming Dan Cole.
Sinckler is making his first start in 12 Tests and Hatley is confident he is ready for the promotion.
“When Kyle came on against France, he had real impact the last 20 minutes and has quite rightly earned an opportunity to start. We’ve got no issue around that,” Hatley said.
“He’s trained really well, been out in New Zealand and played in the Lions series, so he’s got good international experience. He’s ready to start.
“Dan Cole took the news he was dropped like you’d expect him to. He has 80-plus caps, has been on two Lions tours and he wants desperately to start for his country.
“I’d be pretty upset if he wasn’t as disappointed as he has been, but he’s been really supportive of Kyle and worked unbelievably hard this week to make sure that he supports the team.”
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
