Ireland vs England Betting Tips, Odds and Prediction
The best rugby team on the planet according to the world rankings play host to a side that look a million miles from their glory days when Ireland host England on Saturday at the Aviva Stadium. For the hosts this is their final warm-up game on home soil before heading to France for the World Cup, a tournament in which they are fancied to go far.
The visitors have another tune-up game next weekend back at Twickenham before they too embark on their World Cup quest, but on recent evidence The Red Rose will not be troubling the trophy engraver. Ireland should have far too much in the locker to beat England with ease and Billy Grimshaw is backing them heavily in this betting preview...
Steve Borthwick is probably in a perverse way relieved to see the media storm that has engulfed his captain Owen Farrell after his late red card last weekend against Wales. The sheer weight of attention has not fell on his underperforming England players, or indeed on himself and his coaching staff, but has all transferred onto Farrell.
Things only heightened when amazingly his red card was downgraded by the disciplinary panel meaning England's talismanic fly half is free to play not only against his father's team Ireland on Saturday, but much more importantly at the upcoming World Cup. The news has been greeted with calls of bias and corruption from some but that is neither here nor there when it comes to previewing this warm-up match.
Whoever takes the field in white will need to be a whole lot better than they have shown recently, with last week's unconvincing win over an understrength Welsh outfit doing nothing to sway the doubters of Borthwick and his side. Farrell was on the pitch for most of the game yet they still laboured to a mere 2 point victory.
Heading to Dublin in front of a packed house of expectant Irish fans is not what this team needs right now but that is the task facing them and I can't see anything other than a wide margin Irish victory. England are both boring and toothless in attack and have a defence that looks at sixes and sevens, so expect a mauling.
Ireland vs. England Tips
If pricing this up myself I'd have made Ireland 20 point favourites so even money for the hosts to win by 16 or more points represents great value. Since replacing Eddie Jones as England boss Steve Borthwick has rather unsuccessfully attempted to make England more of a grinding test rugby side, with an over reliance on the kicking of Farrell and a lack of invention with ball in hand.
The trouble with this is the defence has not matched up to what is needed to play this style of rugby and as such, poor performances and results have been commonplace.
Two of the greatest number 13s in British rugby league history will be sat in opposite coaching boxes at the Aviva when Ireland head coach and former Wigan star Andrew Farrell pits his wits against England assistant and Leeds Rhinos legend Kevin Sinfield.
The storylines are there to be written but at this stage the game looks a no contest, with Farrell solidifying his position as one of the premier coaches in either code of rugby while Sinfield and his boss Borthwick feel the heat from disillusioned Red Rose fans that are overcome with pessimism as the World Cup approaches.
Farrell has Ireland drilled to perfection and their multiphase style of attack, along with the brute force of their forward pack, could really hurt England and I can see this one being over early as a contest and the pain continuing as Ireland assert their dominance over 80 minutes.
They were good not great a fortnight ago when blowing off the cobwebs against Italy but I'm expecting Ireland to be in full tournament mode here and put England to the sword. They should be on top in every facet of the game so points will flow if they can manage their error count.
Josh van der Flier Anytime Try-Scorer
I've made it quite clear I am expecting Ireland to rack up the points here and I think there is some value in backing star number 7 Josh van der Flier to score a try anytime. Although he isn't the most prolific try scoring forward in the Ireland ranks, he is one of the best line runners in world rugby and is incredibly difficult to stop when building up a head of steam.
There are plenty of routes to points for Ireland, but one of their favourites is short sharp passes in and around the ruck. With Ireland expected to skittle England at most opportunities there should be retreating defenders and gaps aplenty for the Irish strike players to charge through and van der Flier is undoubtedly one of those.
Other firms have him prohibitively priced at around 7/4 in this market but Unibet and BetUK are stand-out best price at 11/4 which looks worth snaffling. As I have now said countless times I really think this game could be a blowout so if you have a fancy in the try scorer market (so long as they're wearing green) then my advice would be to go for it, but for tipping purposes we shall stick with van der Flier.
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