England are sweating on Maro Itoje shaking off illness and saving their season today against Ireland.
Itoje, dubbed ‘Superman’ by Eddie Jones after the win over Wales a fortnight ago, missed their final training session due to a bout of sickness.
Even with him playing the bookies have England as underdogs in a Six Nations game at Twickenham for the first time in 10 years.
The prospect of taking on opponents with 10 wins from their 11 starts without their talisman does not bear thing about.
Forwards coach Matt Proudfoot admitted: “Maro’s a world class player and his x-factor is the amount of pressure he can apply.
“In big Test matches it’s about physicality, controlling the gainline and the set-piece.”
England have fingers firmly crossed as they have arrived at their biggest game since the 2019 World Cup final in a state of disrepair.
Tom Curry and Alex Dombrandt are seriously undercooked after concussion and Covid respectfully.
Kyle Sinckler is carrying a knock and is another to have barely trained all week.
Then there is the Manu Tuilagi-sized hole in midfield which gets bigger with each game the Sale juggernaut misses.
Add in the loss yesterday of influential coach Richard Cockerill, to another Covid positive, and Jones’ team are reeling.
Which perhaps explains why the Australian has been so vocal this week, preferring punchy soundbites to reflecting on how England find themselves in this pickle 545 days out from a World Cup.
It is a year since they played Ireland in Dublin in a match which went so badly Jones took an axe to his squad, giving half of them the chop.
“We’d run our race with that group of players,” he said. “We had an urgent need to move on.”
England have not moved very far. All but four of that side are gone from today’s XV and depending on Itoje’s powers of recovery that could be down to three.
Yet for all the change they know that lose again to the Irish and they will once more likely finish outside the top-three.
England fans expect better from rugby's biggest and best resourced rugby nation.
Last season they endured defeats to all three home union rivals in a Six Nations campaign for the first time.
This year they have lost to Scotland and in narrow victory over Wales been outscored three tries to one.
In neither game could England even claim to have made as many clean breaks or beaten more defenders.
Jones insists the spirit in his team is “absolutely fantastic” and that Ireland won’t know what’s hit them when England turn up the physicality.
That Farrell has felt not the slightest need to respond speaks volumes.
Ireland are a team that know what they are all about, England, by contrast, are still searching.
England: Steward; Malins, Marchant, Slade, Nowell; Smith, Randall; Genge, George, Sinckler, Itoje, Ewels, Lawes (capt), Curry, Simmonds.
Replacements: Blamire, Marler, Stuart, Launchbury, Dombrandt, Youngs, Ford, Daly.
Ireland: Keenan; Conway, Ringrose, Aki, Lowe; Sexton (capt.), Gibson-Park; Healy, Sheehan, Furlong, Beirne, Ryan; O'Mahony, van der Flier, Doris.
Replacements: Herring, Kilcoyne, Bealham, Henderson, Conan, Murray, Carbery, Henshaw.
Ref: Mathieu Raynal (Fra)
