'The belief really started kicking in' - Twickenham return brings back fond memories for Ireland

"Two years ago is a long time," Mike Catt laughs, as he is reminded of his side's last trip to Twickenham.

A lot of rugby has been played since that Guinness Six Nations meeting two years ago. To be specific, Ireland have played 24 games in that period, and have won 22 of them.

The 32-15 win away to England back on 12 March 2022 wasn’t a major shock.

On paper and on form, Ireland were the better team heading into the game, while an early red card for England’s Charlie Ewels left Eddie Jones’ side chasing the game from the start.

While it was a bonus-point victory, and the most points Ireland had ever scored away to England, it had been a scrappy and nervy Irish performance against 14 men, as Farrell’s side scored 17 unanswered points in the final quarter to pull clear and set up their Triple Crown win against Scotland a week later.

Wins away to England are always significant – it was just Ireland’s second win in London since 2011 – but given what this Irish side have gone on to do since, hindsight shows it to be a particularly important milestone.

Andy Farrell had enjoyed some big wins in his first two years in charge, and there were clear signs that his Irish team were progressing.

Their win at home to England the previous year was arguably the turning point for the team, who had gone through the motions in 2020 and early in 2021, while they would also go on to defeat the All Blacks that November, playing an all-action and exhilarating brand of rugby.

All of those big performances and landmark wins had come at home though. Their ability to pull out big wins in hostile environments was still an unknown.

In large part, that was down to Covid-19. In Farrell’s first year in charge, he’d only brought his side on one away trip before