The nature of a more congested Six Nations, specifically in the first three rounds being run off on successive weekends, has no doubt contributed to Andy Farrell shuffling his deck more than normal. But while he constantly referred to freshening up his team for Saturday’s meeting with England at Twickenham (kick-off 2.10pm), he clearly had earmarked this one for his more grizzled and gnarled players too.
Having made a half-dozen changes for last week’s win over Italy, the most discussed of Farrell’s five changes to this starting XV will invariably be Jack Crowley’s recall at outhalf.
But the other four see the return of a quartet of Lions who have a whopping 274 Irish caps between them in Jamison Gibson-Park (34 next Monday), Tadhg Furlong (33), Tadhg Beirne (34) and Josh van der Flier (32).
It is surely no
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