England rugby coach Eddie Jones backs Lions to push the All Blacks

Another Jonathan Joseph hat-trick would certainly help England’s cause, but Ireland will do everything they can to try to stop the visitors posting their 19th consecutive win and making history.

The game unravelled for Jones’ men in the final moments, with a final knock-on greeted by a deafening roar from the home crowd as the hosts claimed the win to pop the grand-slam bubble for the champions.

“We’re playing against the second best team in the world; some would argue they could be the best”. Everything was wrong with preparation because we played like that.

“We’re better off having that experience today than we are in Yokohama Stadium on November 2 (2019) at 8pm”. “I knew if I didn’t put a bit of pressure on him to look after them then I’d be getting it from Joe!” I’m human like everyone else, I make mistakes.

“He said the last thing we want to do is use that as a negative thing and hold us back in any way, shape or form”.

England had a similar chance late on, with Owen Farrell turning down a kick to touch in the 73rd minute to go for touch. It was about us producing a performance. We went very close it the right hand corner twice with Earls and Ringrose. “We’re probably going to wake up tomorrow and there’ll be a lot of sore bodies”.

It is unclear if England’s players will have an opportunity to test themselves against the three-time world champion All Blacks this year.

“Their defence was good and we couldn’t get any momentum in our attack”.

“We’ve got three really experienced, top quality props and one kid who is going to get there”. We will be better for that.

At the end of a tumultuous evening in Lansdowne Road we were treated to the not unique sight of an England captain receiving the Championship trophy when what he wanted was the Grand Slam.

“Obviously we’re disappointed not to win this final game because we had high hopes, we had high expectations of ourselves”, added the hooker.

Ireland, already without Conor Murray after the star scrum-half was injured in a 22-9 defeat by Wales in Cardiff that effectively ended their title hopes last week, lost Heaslip just before the kick-off.

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To trace where this stunning sequence of wins started requires a return to England’s lowest ebb and a meaningless game played in Manchester. I know with Andy Farrell at the helm they have one hell of a defence – so credit to them.

“But we’re not the finished article”. But we have summer tours to look forward to and big games in the future.

“The Irish will have an ambush planned, they have 80 minutes to resurrect their season and I can guarantee you Eddie will not consider this a successful season unless they get the job done in Dublin”, he said.