Last week Ireland confirmed themselves as Six Nations champions with a week of the competition still to go. Today they marked themselves as real World Cup challengers by winning the Grand Slam at Twickenham, beating England 24-15 on St Patrick's Day.
A year ago England went to Ireland with the chance to win back-to-back Six Nations Grand Slams but instead they came up short with Joe Schmidt's side inspired by the chance to get one over Eddie Jones' side.
The roles were reversed this year with Ireland, on St Patrick's Day, visiting 'rugby HQ' with the chance to secure only their third ever Grand Slam against an England side licking their wounds after back-to-back away losses to Scotland and France.
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Eddie Jones made multiple changes to his side with George Ford's demotion to the bench being the headline within the changes.
However despite the changes it was the away side who were the better from the off whilst the hosts once again suffered from ill discipline. Ireland's first try came after Owen Farrell gave away a penalty for a late tackle on Ireland's tryline.
After Garry Ringrose had scored the first try CJ Stander soon added a second to put the Irish in control at 14-0.
England finally put on some pressure and won several penalties inside the visitors 22 which led to Peter O'Mahony being sin binned but England initially came away with no points.
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They did keep the pressure on though and, despite Anthony Watson being down injured, worked the ball into position for Owen Farrell to kick through for Elliot Daly to score and make it 14-5.
If the winners of the two previous Six Nations felt like they could hold on till half-time and have a chance of overturning the result they were proved wrong after the clock went red.
Ireland decided to play on and Jacob Stockdale chipped through and chased to score a try. Ironically England had decided to extend the length of the try area and had they chosen to keep them the same then the winger wouldn't have scored.
The second half was more attritional and England seemed to have more possession and more aggression about their game but it still took to the 65th minute, and the introduction of Ford, to get another try. Daly again going over.
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With the clock already gone 80, Jonny May went over in the corner after minutes of pressure.
In the end though it was too little, to late and Ireland repeated their efforts of 1948 and 2009 to win just a third Grand Slam.
Incredible!
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