While Ireland's quest to become the first ever side to win successive Grand Slam titles in the Six Nations era is over, things are looking slightly more upbeat across the Irish Sea.
England end their campaign with a trip to France and after bringing the Irish hype train to an abrupt end, confidence is certainly high in camp.
Prior to last weekend's Twickenham thriller, the question was how much will Ireland beat England by, rather than whether or not they would get the job done. From ex-players and pundits claiming that Andy Farrell's team is one of the greatest of all time, to some Irish fans already making plans for the Grand Slam lift on St. Patrick's Weekend, the narrative quickly shifted on Saturday.
Ben Earl highlights premature pundit predicitions
While many people would be forgiven to think that professional rugby players don't listen or perhaps care about what is written or said in the media before games, that is far from the case.
England back-row Ben Earl was quick to highlight some of the claims in his post match interview.
The Player of the Match from the intense and entertaining encounter slammed some of the negative press.
I'm a bit emotional because obviouslty Jamie (George) lost his mum the other week, adn we spoke about this a lot this week and Danny's (Care) 100th cap and you know some of the crap that's been thrown at the team over the last week. Apparently we're the worst England team ever. We done pretty well for that accolade.
We've been training like that every day. We all know that sometimes it doesn't translate on the pitch but people don't see half the stuff that we do. They can write what they want.
There's no doubt that tensions and emotions were high, but Ben Earl has stood by his immediate thoughts.
READ HERE: Bernard Jackman Concedes Ireland Were 'Very Lucky' In Six Nations Before England Loss
The Saracens man appeared on BBC's Rugby Union Daily podcast this week and it didn't take long for his frosty post-match interview to be brought up.
I read everything. I like reading it because I'm fascinated about what people think and when you're in it, it's far more fascinating to see what people think. I think we can all say Ireland was our best performance by a good stretch. What I think was the problem was that people weren't seeing the work we were doing in training and how well we were training and it just wasn't transferring. It's always going to come with a new team, an inexperienced team.
Ben Earl then made sure to bring up Jamie Heaslip's bold pre-match prediction from last week. The former Ireland captain appeared on the Rugby Union Daly podcast.
Heaslip said:
I haven’t seen what the bookies are saying. But in order for England to win, Ireland have to go down to like 14 or 13 players and I think England need a couple of trick plays up their sleeve.
Heaslip's comments definitely struck a nerve with Ben Earl and perhaps the England camp in general.
I think a lot of it was coming from a good place, in terms of 'we all want the best for England', but at the same time I think some of it was completely unjustified. There's things where apparently we need to be down to 13 men to stand a chance.
Podcast host Chris Jones did the interview with Heaslip and was quick to come to the aid of the Irish man and suggested that the one clip was taken out of a full 45 minute chat between the pair.
Earl responded by admitting that it added to the occassion for him and his teammates.
But how good of a narrative is that for us during the week.
While Jones may have a point, Jamie Heaslip's comments certainly added fuel to the fire burning inside the England camp last week and his comments have come back to bite him in hindsight.
SEE ALSO: Rassie Erasmus Paid No Attention To Claims Ireland Are 'Best In The World'
