Clinching a win over England in their home ground is a massive goal for any Ireland team, according to Ronan O’Gara.
The former Munster and Ireland player was speaking on Friday’s OTB AM and touched on the significance of winning at Twickenham Stadium.
The La Rochelle head coach commented on how it’ll be easier for Andy Farrell’s men to overcome the English on their home turf because of their victory there in 2018.
“It’s the same as everything in sport and everything in rugby. When you do something once you should be doing it more often.
“You look at where we were coming from and I’d say the record before that was pretty grim. Sport - so much of it is convincing yourself beforehand that you’re going to do it. Now there’s a track there.
“It’s the same as when Munster won the European Cups other teams knew in Ireland, especially Leinster, that ‘If they could do it we should really be doing it.’ So I think yes, belief is huge.
“In Twickenham as a rugby player once you arrive there and run out - if you don’t get excited about playing in Twickenham there’s a screw loose in your head,” O’Gara commented.
While Ireland will obviously be playing in a hostile environment, the former fly-half believes this will encourage the away side.
“It’s a fantastic ground. It’s very different to the Millenium Stadium. You get a great feel of old traditional values when you play in Twickenham. It’s a massive, vast stadium.
“The Millennium Stadium is on you. It’s high, it’s close and there’s a kind of condensation feeling.
“With England, you get a massive feeling of grandeur and vastness and a great old, traditional stadium with the chants of ‘Swing Low’ bellowing from the crowd.
“That motivates you in a great way because Ireland supporters will be heard but England will have at least three or four times as many of them.
“So they’ll have the greater support. But that was a massive carrot for the teams I played in,” O’Gara said.
Ireland take on England at 3pm on Sunday where they will be looking to clinch this year’s Triple Crown.
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