In his latest column in The Independent, former England boss Brian Ashton analyses the repercussions of Ireland's shock victory over the Wallabies in Auckland last weekend.
"Ireland reignited the age-old cross-hemisphere debate between North and South last weekend with their enthralling victory over Australia.
"In many ways the situation was tailor-made for them: all England players, together with England followers who understand the first thing about the game, are acutely aware that the Irish have throughout rugby history shown a remarkable ability to create and feed off chaos, to the extent that there is no more destructive team in the world in and around the tackle area.
"Given that Australia are not exactly renowned for laying stable foundations at the scrum, and that David Pocock, their truly outstanding open-side flanker, was missing from the Wallaby line-up for last Saturday's contest, the men in green and gold must have anticipated a few problems, although I suspect they did not predict the scale of the issues they found themselves facing."
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