Psychological warfare. It is all Eddie Jones knows. That and unrivalled success in the modern coaching era – Steve Hansen never won no Six Nations; Warren Gatland no World Cup.
The England coach has already climbed under his old Randwick mucker Michael Cheika’s skin before sending his England out to beat the Wallabies every which way possible.
There’s a suggestion that Jones rattled the Carton House cage last year with his Johnny Sexton side swipe.
Now, comes history and the chance at “achieving greatness” in Dublin and, of course, Ireland have the upper hand.
“Ireland, psychologically, are in a very strong position,” said Jones.
“They are beaten, they are out of the tournament, they love spoiling parties.
“And the party they love to spoil the most is the England party.”
Dublin has been a graveyard for English Grand Slams. See 2001 and Keith Wood running over Neil Back for the decisive try or the Sexton-inspired scalping of 2011.
“They have an enormous amount of psychological advantage – we are vulnerable,” said Jones, straight faced, after piling 61 points on Scotland.
“We won, we are the champions of the Six Nations so we are in the most vulnerable state and we are going to have to work really hard to get ourselves right for the game.
“And we will, we’ll be right.”
The whiteboard affair may have irked him or it was a ploy to throw Scotland off the scent or he was simply motivating Nathan Hughes and Billy Vunipola – his monstrous number eights of Fijian and Tongan descent respectively – in equal measure.
Explanation: a photographer snapped a whiteboard with the England starting XV at their training base last week. It was either the latest Jones ruse or he changed his team as a result.
Either way, following this earth-shuddering 61-21 dismissal of Scotland, on an evening when Twickenham’s all encompassing power was revealed, Jones instantly switched the story to the phoney war before a full Dublin invasion.
England arrive on St Patrick’s Day in search of dual records: the first ever Six Nations back-to-back Grand Slam and the 19-match winning streak which Ireland denied New Zealand in Chicago.
“I don’t know, depends if you drink Guinness or not,” was his response to the impact of St Patrick’s weekend.
“This is a chance to achieve greatness. How many times in your life do you get a chance to be great?
“No team in the history of the Six Nations has won back to back Grand Slams. This game in Dublin gives us that opportunity.
“They are in the dressing-room now talking about it. They want to do it.
“We know Ireland are going to be difficult because, as I said, they got the psychological advantage.”
Eddie Jones snippets
On his mood?
“I don’t do anything consciously. I don’t think I had much angst on Thursday. You guys were ripping it up. I was smiling for most of the press conference.”
What has him most satisfied?
“That we were ruthless. That we behaved like the number one team in the world. The number one team in the world goes on and finishes them off.”
“We are not the number one team in the world – just look at the rankings – we are number two. There is a gap between us and the number one.
“We are not beating our chests and saying we are the number one team in the world but we aspire to be the number one team in the world.”
On his players?
“There has been a real attitude shift in the team. The attitude hasn’t been bad but the attitude shift has been to embrace a move to the next level.”
On his outhalves?
"Owen Farrell and George Ford work tirelessly at their art and they have a great mentor in Jonny Wilkinson. He comes in every day and works with them, whenever they want; he is a phone call away."
