‘If you ain’t first, you’re last’ - spoiling the Irish Grand Slam party will not cheer up disappointed England

After back-to-back Six Nations victories, England captain Dylan Hartley admits that his side will not be motivated by ending Ireland's Grand Slam dream on Saturday

“Well Dick, here’s the deal, I’m the best there is plain and simple. I mean I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence and nobody can hang with my stuff. I’m just a big, hairy, American winning machine, if you ain’t first, you’re last, you know what I’m talking about?”

Ricky Bobby, 2006

From inside the England camp, it must feel a bit like Talladega Nights. Not everyone will be familiar with the Nascar-themed comedy starring Will Ferrell as the all-dominant, all-conquering Ricky Bobby, whose relentless run at the top of the sport is brought crashing down when a new challenger from abroad has the nerve to take him on at his own game.

For Jean Girard, Bobby’s French arch-nemesis, see Ireland. Having wrapped up the Six Nations last weekend after England failed to beat France, Joe Schmidt’s side will attempt to compound the dethroned champions’ misery and claim an historic Grand Slam triumph – just their third in their history and a first to be won at Twickenham Stadium by an away side.

There will be many of the 82,000 inside Twickenham to whom Talladega Nights is alien, but then so will losing. England have not lost a Six Nations game at home since the 2012 defeat by Wales, a run of 15 consecutive victories in the championship which is perhaps the only reason why they might head into Saturday’s encounter as marginal favourites. It’s been eight long years since Ireland conjured up a win in south-west London, but this chance will be better than any to break that unwanted run.

And speaking of unwanted, that’s precisely the word that can be used for England’s 2018 campaign. For a team that fewer than three weeks ago had dreams of becoming the first to win the Six Nations outright three times, the wheels have quickly fallen off. Lose this weekend against the newly-crowned champions and Eddie Jones’ side could easily finish fifth, their lowest ever position in the tournament.

But even if they win and manage to salvage the tournament to finish second, will it mean anything to a squad that has claimed successive Six Nations titles up until this year?

Hartley will lead a squad on Saturday that shows 10 changes from the defeat by France (Getty)

“We could finish second, [fifth] is the pessimist view,” said captain Dylan Hartley when asked if finishing second-bottom would be unacceptable. “I tend to think the other way. Well we wanted to win the tournament, so it’s a disappointment.

“What’s that film? Talladega Nights, there’s a great quote in that…I’m not going to say it.”

Hartley doesn’t have to. This England side is one that prides itself on winning, and up until the end of February it had not experienced a loss under Eddie Jones. Yet like buses, two came in quick succession and suddenly Jones is staring a mini-crisis in the face. England have not lost three Six Nations matches consecutively since 2006 – it’s something that they just don’t do anymore.

Then there’s the possibe indignation of watching a rival clinch a Grand Slam on your own patch. The thought of England doing so in Dublin made the Irish players so motivated to spoil the party that they produced a performance on a par with the one that beat the All Blacks in 2016. On that occasion 12 months ago, Ireland combined raw emotion, the St Patrick’s Day spirit and a game based around strangling England at the set-piece to control the game.

And yet despite the evidence suggesting that the fire to deny teams winning is just as large as the one that burns to win, England will not be relying on such measures.

dylan-hartley.jpg, by Jack De Menezes (Getty)

“Everyone here is motivated differently,” Hartley said. “There would be some players who are motivated by that; I’m motivated by finishing the tournament on a high after two disappointments. I’m motivated by showing the rugby world that we’re still a good team. We do that by beating the current Six Nations champions. I can’t tell you how to get motivated. You’ve got to find your own way.

“You don’t treat one game differently to another. That’s why we talk about the next game being the biggest game. It’s important on all fronts. We want to finish the tournament strongly, we don’t want Ireland to win a Grand Slam. It depends how you are motivated. There’s all these different things that contribute to that. Some people might be motivated by not wanting to lose our home record. Some people want to perform for their family. Some people want to perform for the fans. There’s so many things you can add to this weekend’s game.

“The good thing about the group is we’ve experienced some great results and some good wins and we’ve experienced some losses now. One thing we can’t do on the training field is replicate a loss. You can set up different strategies but you can’t recreate real life losses and I think this has been the best learning for us because you see how your teammates and the group reacts. The way the team has responded off the back of wins has been fantastic – we focus on getting better, learning and improving – and off the back of a loss that’s exactly what we’ve done again. It just hurts a bit more.”

It’ll hurt ten times as bad if England’s “response” is another defeat, and while Jones’s position as head coach is undeniably safe despite his admission that he’s “under the pump” after a difficult week, the same cannot be said for certain members in his squad. With seven new faces in the starting XV and 10 positional changes, the face of English rugby feels like it’s starting to change. Defeat this weekend could considerably quicken that transformation.