England boss Eddie Jones made a bizarre attempt to dial up the pressure by tagging Ireland as "red hot favourites" ahead of Saturday's Six Nations clash at Twickenham.
After praising Ireland as 'the most cohesive side in world rugby' on Monday, Jones went further after naming his team for the clash with remarks that will probably make the Ireland camp laugh.
Asked about Ireland's threat, Jones responded: "We’re more concerned about ourselves, mate. What I do know is they’re red hot favourites.
"I went to the coffee shop yesterday and the girl says, “That Irish team must be good, all their ex players think they’re going to win the game and all the ex-England players think they’re going to win the game. They must be a pretty good team. How you feeling?'
"I said, 'Just give me the coffee please'."
The Red Rose supremo is known for playing mind games and, earlier today, Farrell refused to engage, pointing out that in the past Jones had said that 'praise makes you weak'.
Both England and Ireland have won two and lost one in the opening three rounds of the championship, though England have to play Ireland and France in their final two games.
Jones said: "It’s a semi-final. One of the two teams progresses to the final, which is the last game.
"Both teams know what’s at stake. But if you read the papers there is only one team that has a chance of winning it."
Rightly, Jones had earlier pointed out that Ireland are favourites and that is backed up by the bookies' odds.
He continued: "I’m not a bookmaker mate, I’m a coach. All I’m worried about is my team playing well. We’re prepared and we’re going to go after them mate.
"As we’ve spoken about, they’re a very cohesive team - 80% of the team train for 11 months of the year (with Leinster).
"They’re a highly organised national union that gets the players in the best condition so we’ve got to break their cohesion.
"Once we break their cohesion, we’ll have opportunities to attack and we’ve then got to be good enough to take them."
Ireland have made six changes for the encounter, with Johnny Sexton, Hugo Keenan and Bundee Aki among those returning.
"I don’t try to guess the opposition’s selection, mate," said Jones. "I’ve got enough to worry about here."
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