England fell apart against Ireland in the second half. England rocked the current champions to the core in the first 40 minutes as their three sevens in the back-row suffocated the Irish backs, creating chaos around the breakdown and forcing Ireland to play behind themselves in a quite magnificent first 40 minutes.
England grabbed a bonus point at the end of the game but they had their chance to take this match and close it out — the simple truth is yet again they failed to do so. The first half saw England teach Ireland a lesson about their own ruck superpower as the Curry twins and Ben Earl skinned them at the breakdown.
Tom Curry was a relentless machine, showing that as his injury-ravaged body has slowed down a tad, his intellect and abrasion is still as evident as ever. The pressure that back-row exerted on Ireland was suffocating; Sam Prendergast slipped further and further back, as he and the Irish backline became static and lateral, forced to play well behind their pack and failing to get any momentum into their game.
The Kiwi ref, a man who never knowingly goes unnoticed, dished out the first yellow after only three penalties from England and from that moment, the relationship between the officials and Itoje went rolling downhill as clear tension emerged between them. As Ireland emerged from the tunnel, they did so with the focus on getting their precision and breakdown momentum back into their game.
They needed a moment to feed off and it came from Murley as he had his first brain fart, trying to pick up a ball bobbling into touch from a direct kick, as he feared the incoming Josh van der Flier. In any other game, Murley would have acted differently, but his howler was the start of 23 minutes where the only times England got out of their own half was when they restarted.
