Former Ireland Captain Rory Best believes Ireland will need to “front up”  to defeat England in their final match of the Six Nations on Saturday.

After failing to beat England in their past four meetings, the Ulsterman told us yesterday that a win tomorrow could relieve a lot of pressure on the team heading into the Autumn Internationals.

“It’s been four losses where the scoreboard’s been tight at times, but it’s really been four losses where Ireland have been nowhere near at the races. It never looked like they were actually capable of beating them,” Best said.

“If Ireland go into November potentially having finished fifth in the Six Nations, you know the scope for experimenting is really, really tight because there’s a pressure to perform and a pressure to get results.

“I think Ireland need to front up. Ireland need to find somewhere to get dominance, whether it’s a set-piece, a breakdown, or somewhere they can go if, and when England go through a purple patch.

“Then Ireland can say, ‘right, let’s go back to the lineout maul because we can slow them down here, we can put them under pressure, we can get penalties and gain yards or whatever aspect of the game that is. And then whenever England are going through a purple patch, Ireland know that this strategy is a go-to for them.

“They really need to find a foothold, and if Ireland allow England to dominate some of those facets of the game, you don’t ever get a respite; they just constantly come at you, which I think has happened a little too much over the last four games.”

Coming off the back of a gritty win against Scotland last week, Best believes his old teammates will be in high spirits, which could pose a significant threat to a transitioning England side.

“I think they’ll be in a reasonably good place,” he said. “They’ll take a lot of confidence from the way they started against Scotland, they’ll take a lot of confidence from the fact they were fourteen points up, and they’ll take a lot of confidence in the fact that after Scotland drew level, Ireland had the wherewithal to get the win.

“They’ll be annoyed they let a fourteen point lead slide. But they’ll be taking the positives from that.”