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Six Nations: England vs Ireland Preview

Eddie Jones and England will look to make it three wins in a row and put pressure on France at the top of the Six Nations table as they host Ireland at Twickenham today.

The past few games in which these sides have faced each other have been rather high scoring, England winning four of the last five matchups by a combined score of 149-86 and with the two sides finding themselves towards the top of the table, this should be a tasty matchup once again.

Team News

England: Steward, Malins, Marchant, Slade, Nowell, Smith, Randall, Genge, George, Sinckler, Itoje, Ewels, Lawes (C), Curry, Simmonds

Replacements: Blamire, Marler, Stuart, Launchbury, Dombrandt, Youngs, Ford, Daly

Ireland: Keenan, Conway, Ringrose, Aki, Lowe, Sexton (C), Gibson-Park, Healy, Sheehan, Furlong, Beirne, Ryan, O’Mahony, van der Flier, Doris

Replacements: Herring, Kilcoyne, Bealham, Henderson, Conan, Murray, Carbery, Henshaw

In his pre-match press conference, England boss Eddie Jones focused on the physical aspect of tomorrow’s match, saying he believes the Irish won’t be able to match his side’s brutish style.

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“Ireland haven’t played against a team like us before – they haven’t played against South Africa since 2017,” Jones said.

“We play with a physicality they haven’t seen before. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do on Saturday.

“We have one intention in this game and that’s to go after Ireland. We are going to chase them hard down the street.

“Do we enjoy that challenge? Yes.

“This team don’t know how good they can be and we are certainly going to find out on Saturday how good we can be.”

Jones went on to speak about his side’s offensive department, admitting that they are very close to being a top side in that regard.

“We’re not far away. We’re one pass, one accurate kick, one good support line away from being very good. But we’re a work in progress.

“We’re really pleased with the way it’s going, but it’s not converting into tries when the game’s always about scoring tries. But that will come.

“We’d like it to be this weekend but if not it might be next weekend. If it’s not next weekend it might be on the Australia tour. But it’s coming.”

Kick off is at 16:45, the game live on ITV1.

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