The China Mail - Hunger and belief key to Ireland's win, says Sheehan

Ireland came into the match with criticism stinging their ears after a humbling 36-14 defeat away to France two weeks ago before an unconvincing 20-13 success at home to Italy last week.

But they ran in five tries as they took a highly-fancied England side, whose 31-20 defeat to Scotland last week ended a 12-match winning run, to task.

"We're such a hungry group. We believe in ourselves a lot," Sheehan told Britain's ITV channel.

"We knew we had a lot of Irish support here. We tapped into it well and I think we came out of the blocks extremely well.

"That performance right there is right up there with one of the best we've had."

Coming into this match, there had been a lot of talk about Ireland's decline since their back-to-back Six Nations victories in 2023 and 2024, before finishing third behind champions France and England last year.

But Sheehan insisted that his team had not let the talk affect their preparation.

"I think we stuck together really well and sort of ignored that," he said.

"We have a lot of belief in this group. Everybody that we need is in the group and when we all come together we can make these special things happen.

"To get a win in Twickenham and see this Irish crowd, it's pretty special."

England captain Maro Itoje blamed England's lack of accuracy for their disappointing performance.

England made 14 handling errors to Ireland's eight and conceded 24 turnovers to 10 for the visitors.

They were outscored by five tries to three despite carrying for almost 200 metres more.

"It wasn't the result or performance that we wanted, so as players we have to take responsibility and make sure we're better," Itoje told ITV.

"Ultimately we weren't accurate. We got again into good positions and when we were there we didn't either come away with points or we didn't score.

"As we know, it's not good enough and we'll be working harder to get it right."

Itoje, who won his 100th cap, said they knew what they needed to work on ahead of their trip to Rome to face Italy in two weeks' time.

"We need to look after the ball. We need to make sure our possessions are accurate because ultimately we turned the ball over too much in that first half," said Itoje.

O.Yip--ThChM