Ireland look to England's 2003 World Cup winners, with good reason

DUBLIN : As Irish thoughts immediately turned to the World Cup after securing the Six Nations Grand Slam on Saturday, captain Johnny Sexton not for the first time brought up England's all-conquering team of two decades ago.

Ireland's talismanic flyhalf is clearly seeking to draw inspiration from Martin Johnson's great England team and with good reason as the two sides headed into the respective World Cups in unerringly similar form as the game's top-ranked side. 

England's 2003 Grand Slam winners went to the World Cup on a run of 31 wins in 34 games that included multiple victories over New Zealand, South Africa and holders Australia and, most notably, back-to-back defeats of all three the previous November.

Ireland extended their current streak to 22 wins in 24 games with Saturday's defeat of England, a run that has also been littered with victories over the best of the northern and southern hemisphere, and a first series loss inflicted by any team on the All Blacks in New Zealand in 27 years.

"When England won in 2003, they had a Grand Slam in the same year so we need to keep our feet on the ground and we need to keep building," Sexton, who plans to retire after the tournament in France, told a news conference on Saturday.

The Six Nations record points scorer also mentioned the 2003 Grand Slam earlier in the week, saying it showed how England could perform on the big occasion in a World Cup year.

Sexton witnessed it first hand too as a teenage fan that year when England hammered Ireland 42-6 in a winner-takes-all Six Nations decider at the old Lansdowne Road stadium.

There are similarities between the two sides - a dominant pack and a match winner at 10 - while in the likes of Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong and Caelan Doris,