sport news The England star who supported Ireland! Can you recognise the player as a ... trends now

This player may be an established member of Steve Borthwick's England squad in 2024, but almost 20 years ago, he might have been preparing to support Ireland ahead of the two teams' Six Nations clash on Saturday. 

With a dash of Irish blood on his mother's side, the heavily decorated player had divided loyalties for a spell - before a member of his youth rugby club put him right as a teenager. 

Ahead of the game, England are third in the Six Nations standings as they welcome the impressive Irish to Twickenham hoping to be the first team to defeat Andy Farrell's men after taking maximum points from their first three games.

The Red Roses have so far won two of their opening games and lost one as they prepare for their final home match of the tournament. 

Here, the England player in question shares his thoughts on the hotly anticipated Twickenham tussle. Can you guess who it might be?  

By Joe Marler

Not many people know this but I grew up supporting Ireland. I loved guys like Marcus Horan, Jerry Flannery, John Heyes and Paul O'Connell. My mate, Matt, reminded me of it the other day when he sent a photograph of me wearing a green jersey as a porky teenager.

I have some Irish blood on my mum's side of the family and I was a bit of a non-conformist. Even though I grew up here, I didn't want to be like everyone else by supporting England. It came to a head when I was 13 and giving it the biggun to everyone cheering on England when they were on TV in the club-house.

Let's just say one of the first team players had a stern word with me in the toilets and I've supported England ever since. Matt enjoys reminding me about it. I've sorted him some tickets for the match at Twickenham and we know we need to be far better than we were against Scotland. It bugs me every time I see a photo of the brilliant Finn Russell doing his Spiderman hands celebration.

Our review session when we got back from Edinburgh was scathing. If you let your ego get in the way of those meetings then they can be very unpleasant. The coaches go hard at it but you need to remember it's coming from a place of love. It's easier for me at 33 but the new guys haven't experienced those knockbacks. 

You can feel untouchable when you're a youngster who has been riding a wave at club level. They need to understand that it's not personal. The coaches let you know that. It's just about getting better.

There was a fair whack of silence but when you look around the room you can hear the voices in boy's heads. It's dead quiet but you can see the cogs going, 'Are they going to show a clip of me doing that?' If you keep your head down, trying not to make eye contact, you're going to get picked out. I try the reverse and go full eye contact!

Eventually the coaches open it up to the floor and there's always that tumbleweed moment of, 'Right, who's going to go first then?' You wait it out until someone feels ready. We can't just sweep it under the carpet. We made too many mistakes against Scotland and it became a domino effect.

We discussed the mental resilience of when you make a mistake, what do you do next? You can't think, 'I don't want to put myself in that position in case I drop it again.' You can't hide at the bottom of a ruck because you don't want to get in the defensive line in case you miss another tackle. 

If you spend your time hiding – and believe me, I've spent enough of my career hiding – there's no point you being here. You're not going to last in Test rugby if you don't want to put yourself out there. The only way you learn is by making those mistakes and then putting yourself out there so you know what to do next time

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