The opening fortnight of the Six Nations season has contained some huge physical contests but an even bigger collision awaits at Twickenham. England's title chances will dissolve if they lose next week to Ireland and Billy Vunipola, among the heaviest hitters in the championship so far, is already looking forward to introducing himself to the Irish forwards.
Vunipola and his England team-mates will be in camp at St George's Park near Burton-upon-Trent until Thursday and their top priority is no secret. Ireland's mauling and strength at the breakdown have overpowered Scotland and Wales, and England's pack know they need to avoid a similar fate. "They do look to the pack for go-forward with the likes of Paul O'Connell as the engine," said Vunipola. "If we can stop him and the rest of their forwards doing that, I think we've got a good chance of winning."
Subduing O'Connell on the big occasion tends to be easier said than done but the younger England forwards have clearly derived confidence from their last three performances – against New Zealand, France and Scotland. In all three contests they have been tough to handle up front, with Vunipola, Courtney Lawes and Dylan Hartley providing a steely spine, and the former is in no mood to listen to people suggesting the extra experience of O'Connell and Brian O'Driscoll will automatically tell.
"For some reason we always get knocked for being too young or whatever but we relish these challenges and as a team we want to test ourselves," Vunipola said. "At Twickenham, with the crowd behind us, it will be a good game for sure. It's a massive honour to play against [O'Connell and O'Driscoll] but there's only so much respect you can give them because once you're on the pitch you're trying to beat them. Ireland are obviously a great team, they're unbeaten at the moment and hopefully we can be the ones to beat them."
Ireland will have to find a lock replacement for the unfortunate Dan Tuohy, who broke his right forearm against Wales, but the expert use of the 'choke tackle' to hold up opposition mauls and regain possession is a collective effort. "The key is to try to get as low as them or even lower," said Vunipola. "That's something we definitely have to work on because they are a well-drilled team. Having said that, I think we are as well. Hopefully we can meet that challenge head-on."
Staying fit between now and then would also be helpful, with statistics released by the Rugby Football Union showing that more than a third of all injuries to professional players occur in training. Rates of injury for the England senior side in 2012-13, though, remained stable. While there were more during matches, on average they were less severe and the amount of time players were absent decreased to 24 days. Teams at the top of the Premiership table generally had fewer injuries than those towards the bottom.
The survey also suggested there has been no significant rise in injury rates in England since 2002. Concussion, however, was the most common Premiership match injury for the second season in succession, with one such incident reported per team every four matches. A mandatory concussion-education programme as well as other initiatives will be implemented before the start of next season.
Italy's Michele Rizzo and France's Rabah Slimani, both sent off in Paris on Sunday, will attend disciplinary hearings in London on Wednesday.
