Sheehan: It’s Up There As One Of Our Best Performances

Sheehan’s second try in four Tests came just after a yellow card for Henry Pollock, as Andy Farrell’s men seized the initiative early on in both halves to keep the pressure on England, the odds-on pre-match favourites.

France had done the same to Ireland in Paris on the 2026 Guinness Men’s Six Nations’ opening night, and England must have been experiencing similar feelings to last week’s Calcutta Cup clash when Scotland stung them to open up a 17-point first-quarter advantage.

Ireland made their hosts pay dearly for some missed opportunities, going 22-0 up as silky winger Robert Baloucoune touched down for the second week running before carving through to set up replacement Tommy O’Brien’s first Six Nations score.

The confidence that was maybe lacking in Ireland’s play in recent weeks, particularly in attack, was visibly back, with hooker Sheehan saying: “I think when you’re in an away ground like this, like Stade de France, it’s the way you start.

“We started poorly over in France and it kind of seeps in and you can feel quite isolated on the pitch and then everyone gets a bit low. It’s hard to turn that around.

“I thought we did a great job coming out of the blocks. We said to each other inside (in the dressing room), first 10 minutes blow the load. Your legs will follow you after that, and I think it just got us into the game.

“People were on top of the grass, bouncing from moment to moment, and created special moments for each other.”

The team’s rip-roaring return to form all started with player-of-the-match Jamison Gibson-Park taking a quick tap penalty to snipe over in the left corner after 19 minutes.

England rallied to twice cut the gap to 15 points, but the Irish lead was never truly troubled with Jack Crowley converting Jamie Osborne’s steamrolling 69th-minute try to top off his own 17-point tally.

Asked what specific things he saw during the match that made him feel they were getting on top, Sheehan told ITV: “I think (when) we’re playing at the line, you know, we have multiple options at the line that keeps defenders guessing.

“We got a few nice line breaks there and then it’s also in defence, sticking together and coming up with big turnover moments.

“We had some massive moments, whether it be on our own line or in our own 22 of lads who are unbelievable poachers, or forcing a knock-on.

“Those sort of big moments where someone breaks back and makes a tackle they shouldn’t be able to, you’re just bouncing to that lineout, you’re bouncing to that scrum. Those moments in a stadium like this just give you incredible life.”

The statistics fully back up what the 27-year-old was saying, with the visitors’ attack coming away with 4.3 points per 22-metre entry, compared to England’s 1.8, and building serious momentum at key stages off a rucks won rate of 98.9%.

Their resilient defence contributed to England conceding 24 turnovers, with Baloucoune credited with winning three of them. Captain Caelan Doris and Tadhg Beirne set the bar in terms of the tackle count, making 37 tackles between them and missing just one each.

The standout moments in stifling the potential of an English comeback include the excellent Stuart McCloskey chasing down Marcus Smith to deny him intercept try, and Baloucoune racing across to combine with O’Brien to bundle Tommy Freeman into touch just a few metres out.

This was very much Ireland’s most complete performance for some time, and it was all the more stunning given that they had struggled to see off Italy in Dublin last weekend. But the belief never wavered in camp, and Sheehan was delighted they pulled it off in front of the vocal travelling support.

“We’re such a hungry group, we believe in ourselves a lot. We’ve probably been under the pump in the media quite recently, and 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 and, you know, that performance right there is right up there with one of the best we’ve had.

“We’ve a lot of belief in this group. Everybody that we need is in the group and when we all come together, we can make special things happen and, you know, to get a win in Twickenham and see this Irish crowd, it’s pretty special.”

Sheehan has of course been part of big victories on the road in the green jersey before, from England and the historic Test series success in New Zealand in 2022, to the record triumph away to France two years ago when the Six Nations title was retained.

Under Farrell, Ireland have had an enviable ability to chalk up results away from home in the Championship. This was their ninth win in their last 11 away matches in the tournament, only losing in London and Paris during that period.

The forward with the most tries in Six Nations history – 14 in 22 appearances – was keen to praise the coaching staff for their hard work behind the scenes that led to this unforgettable five-try display at the home of England Rugby.

“I think Faz just reminds us that if we get our systems going right, we have a plan to beat anyone. I think we saw out there today the way we wanted to play rugby.

“You know, we wanted to put pressure on other teams. All this talk of England putting pressure on other teams by playing in our half, I think we counteracted that really well with our plans done well.

“Faz gives us incredible belief even when you look on the outside of the group and there isn’t a whole lot of belief in the group. I think Faz and the whole coaching team have done a great job at just making us believe that we can do it and we can pull out a performance like that today.”

With no match next week after three rounds on the bounce, the Ireland squad will get a chance to draw breath and reflect on where they stand, not just in terms of the Six Nations pecking order (third behind Scotland and France), but on parts of their game that need some more work.

On another day, England might have been able to capitalise on some of Ireland’s set-piece issues. Although Sheehan and Rónan Kelleher had a 90% success rate with their lineout throws, there were two scrums lost out of seven, and five scrum penalties conceded, including two inside the opening quarter of an hour.

On the subject of the set-piece, Sheehan added: “It’s probably the one area that we didn’t actually perform (in) again really. But I think that’s just something that we’re going to have to make sure we keep an eye on over time.

“Teams are getting incredibly good at scrum, at mauling, and you know, we want to play obviously a nice brand of rugby, which involves passing the ball around and having forwards operating at high levels.

“So, we need to make sure that we can also do the set-piece stuff as well. That’s definitely something we will focus on, but yeah, we probably got away with it today in that way.”

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