s this a dead rubber or the defining match of England’s Six Nations campaign? A British & Irish Lions audition or a renewal of Anglo-Irish rivalries that needs no additional narrative to get the juices flowing? It is not always easy to put England matches in context. The swashbuckling performance against France last weekend has kept the critics at bay and – win, lose or draw in Dublin on Saturday – a chance to return home and see families afterwards will quickly put the result into perspective. Listen to the noises coming out of the England camp this week, however, and you do not get the sense an exhibition match is to be expected. Plenty of those watching from home would relish a repeat of the last time England kicked off their final Six Nations fixture with neither side in contention to clinch the title – the 38-38 draw with Scotland in 2019 – but you get the sense Eddie Jones would not. The England head coach has a pretty good idea of when he will make headlines so his “rat poison” jibe was less likely to be a response to criticism that had irked him, more an attempt to channel the us-versus-the-world spirit that tends to serve his side so well, as was the case against France last week. Jones and his players have been determined to temper expectations, adamant that just because they freed themselves from the shackles last Saturday it does not mean they will do so again this time. “Attritional” rather than ambition or adventure has been the buzzword this week. “Against a really tough team like Ireland, the first thing you need to do is win the physicality of the game, and we have spoken about that this week,” the England fly-half George Ford said. “We’ve got a good pack, I think, that can go about and do the business in terms of that.” At least he is no longer talking about the ball being a “ticking timebomb”, nor playing like it in fairness, given his performance against France. England have won their past four against Ireland – all in comprehensive fashion – but Jones will be aware that victory in Dublin, any which way, will ensure the glass is half full as the curtain comes down on a campaign that began in such trying circumstances. Indeed, perhaps the best way to put this match into context is to say it marks the end of England’s post-World Cup chapter. It remains unclear precisely what England’s summer plans will look like but Jones will be without a considerable cohort of players away with the Lions and as a result the next time he can pick his first-choice squad will be the autumn, when the 2019 World Cup has disappeared in the rearview mirror and the 2023 tournament will be on the horizon. Accordingly, style points or too much forward planning are not on the agenda in Dublin. Not for the first time since the World Cup, Jones has this week challenged his players to right the wrongs of their preparation for the final against South Africa, coming off the back of a praiseworthy performance the week before. It is clearly a motivational tactic and again demonstrates the phase of the cycle in which Jones still sees his side. Do not expect to hear it when England reconvene in the autumn, however. “We see it as coming back in after Wales [defeat] and knew we had two of the best teams in Europe in France and Ireland to play,” Ford said. “We wanted to put some brilliant performances out there to get two wins. Put a good performance out there. We had a couple of disappointing performances early in the tournament but when we came back in you couldn’t ask for two more competitive, challenging games.” Maybe, above all else, there will be a cathartic release. There will have been a certain degree of novelty among the players in just getting on a plane to travel to Dublin this week and no doubt a relief that their time in the Six Nations bubble is nearly up. The hope is there will be a considerably more normal feel to camp come the autumn and start of the next chapter. “We want to leave it all out there regardless,” Ford said. “It’s our last game together for a while. We spoke about all those sorts of things to make sure we make the most of it. In terms of emotionally leaving it out there, we will be doing that as a team. It has been almost nine weeks now of being under these Covid restrictions and there are lads with families and kids. People miss home very much.”