Joe Marler says things are serious in the England camp ahead of Ireland showdown

Joe Marler has revealed that England’s training sessions have become edgier in anticipation of the step up presented by Ireland in Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations clash.

The losing side at Twickenham will be eliminated from the title race heading into the final round with Grand Slam-chasing France completing the trio of rivals battling to seize Wales’ crown.

England face their toughest assignments of the Championship starting against Andy Farrell’s Ireland, who find themselves in the rare position of being favourites in the eyes of bookmakers as well as Eddie Jones.

Marler insists the understanding of what is to come led to a particularly feisty practice session on Tuesday as they look to build on a hard fought victory over Wales in round three.

“It was a great training session. It was a really nice, tasty one actually. There’s definitely a bigger sense of ‘OK, Ireland are very good’,” the Harlequins prop said.

“England v Wales games are always big and you know come kick-off it’s going to be tasty against them, but with the greatest respect Wales were missing a fair few names.

“And there was probably a little more expectation on us to win that game, whereas Ireland are full bore and have been together for some time now.

“It was definitely noticeable in training. The hits tend to be a little bit stickier and there’s a little bit more sharpness.

“Boys were like ‘OK, serious game this Saturday’, and I’m not saying that last Saturday wasn’t serious.

“Whenever I try to make a gag, sometimes I get a couple of laughs out of it, but today they weren’t having any of it.

“They were looking at me like ‘shut up’. And I was like, ‘right, OK. You lot are serious today’.”

Former Ireland head coach Eddie O’Sullivan has stoked the fires