Shedding underdog mentality easier said than done for Ireland

Steve Hansen famously threw down the gauntlet in front of Ireland at the tail end of 2018.

He'd just seen his All Blacks side beaten for the very first time on Irish soil by Joe Schmidt’s green machine.

Billed as a bout for title of world’s best, the then number-one ranked side fell to a 16-9 defeat.

That result, 11 months out from a World Cup, set up Ireland, the Grand Slam champions, for a stellar 2019.

"It's their turn [as the world's best], so we'll see how they cope with that," he said.

The answer was not very well at all.

Completely outplayed by England in February, they went missing against Wales in the rain of Cardiff, got well beaten by Japan and then hammered by New Zealand when it mattered.

"Performance anxiety" was the buzz phrase for why Ireland weren’t big in Japan.

You could go way back to Lens in 1999 or you might recall Wellington in 2011 for times when expectations weren’t met by an Irish team with the favourites tag.

Something similar happened last season when Ireland won the Grand Slam.

The result, and the achievement, paved over the performance against England.

All week something just didn’t sit right.

The Red Rose were coming to Dublin as a small speedbump in Ireland’s procession to just a fourth ever clean sweep.

Andy Farrell’s side, having taken care of business against Wales, France, Italy and Scotland, were at the Aviva Stadium to pick up the Six Nations trophy and the Grand Slam.

An English side, who eight months later would come within a penalty kick of reaching the World Cup final, were just a small detail, a box to be checked.

Ireland were favourites to win by two scores and underdog status was gone. The natural order of things had been upset and it just didn’t feel right.

When England came to Dublin