England captain Chris Robshaw demands greater focus for Ireland Six Nations game
Sunday 15 February 2015 15:25, UK
England captain Chris Robshaw is demanding total focus from his side as they prepare to face Ireland in the Six Nations on March 1.
Stuart Lancaster’s side defeated Italy 47-17 at Twickenham on Saturday but it was an unconvincing performance at times, with the visitors scoring the first try through Sergio Parisse.
Opponents Ireland enjoyed an 18-11 victory over France at the Aviva Stadium on the same day and Robshaw revealed England took time to regain their focus after pulling off a surprise win away to Wales in their opening fixture in the competition.
Every game is decisive. You need to make sure you beat what's in front of you and that's what we did.
"For the first couple of days after Cardiff you did see bit of an emotional hangover, so to speak. But come Thursday and Friday we were spot on," said Robshaw.
"We need to be right on the button mentally for Ireland. They're an extremely good side who have an extremely smart coach in Joe Schmidt. He generally finds weaknesses somewhere.
"It's about making sure we're clued up, that everyone does their job as well as possible when we get there.
"And the details need to be spot on because we need to try and find their weaknesses as well.
"We got the result we wanted against Italy. We know we weren't great at times, but to get a good scoreline like that and get what we wanted out of the game was very promising.
"Every game is decisive. You need to make sure you beat what's in front of you and that's what we did."
In particular, Robshaw has highlighted the need to improve on their defensive frailties when they travel to Dublin at the start of next month for a meeting of the only two unbeaten sides in the competition.
"I'm not sure why we conceded early again. As soon as they got hold of the ball they made easy yards and Parisse got over in the corner,” he added.
"We were a little bit passive defensively throughout the whole game. Maybe it's an area for us to look at and potentially see why we're starting slowly.
"I'm sure that if we don't sort it out, other teams will try to exploit it."
