Brown calls for England to improve discipline in Ireland clash
Ahead of their final Rugby World Cup warm-up match against Ireland, Mike Brown says England need to keep their cool.
England full-back Mike Brown has insisted that Stuart Lancaster's side must maintain their discipline when they take on Ireland in their last warm-up match before the Rugby World Cup gets under way later this month.
The tournament hosts face Fiji at Twickenham in the World Cup opener on September 18 and Lancaster will be looking on Saturday to fine-tune his starting XV after selecting his final 31-man squad last week.
And Brown believes a sense of calm has returned to the camp following the squad confirmation, reiterating that England must show better discipline than they did in the 25-20 loss to France last time out.
"We didn't put in a good performance in Paris against France but there were only small things to sort out," he said.
"Discipline was the main thing. That gave them easy points and easy field territory and put us on the back foot and we were always chasing the game.
"I think as a squad our team cohesion has always been great. But over the last few weeks it's been tense and everyone's been on edge.
"I think coming in now it's sort of a clean slate, just getting back to it and we are that one step closer to the World Cup that we are all striving for."
Lancaster has made five changes to the line-up that was beaten in Paris, but Brown knows that stifling Ireland's potent kicking game will give England the best chance of extended their six-match winning streak at Twickenham.
"Ireland have a great kicker in Johnny Sexton and they are probably the best in the world with the kicking strategy that they use," he added.
"Getting the first catch will settle the nerves — and it does give confidence to my team-mates around me. The opposition may then start doubting their kicking ability if I keep defusing things.
"I can talk about dealing with it, but it is about me not backing down and dominating that space in the air. This is a full-blooded Test match."
Ireland, who have never made it past the quarter-finals stage of a World Cup, won the last clash between the two sides 19-9, but England have not lost consecutive Tests against them in over four years.
Following back-to-back Six Nations titles, Joe Schmidt's men are now the highest-ranked side in the Northern Hemisphere, though they were beaten by Wales in their previous warm-up fixture last weekend.
Man of the match in that defeat was Ulster lock Iain Henderson, although Schmidt has decided to go with first-choice duo of Paul O'Connell and Devin Toner.
"Iain's had two full games so far, Dev has had a cameo really by comparison," said Schmidt.
"It was good to get that combination back together again with Dev and Paul, they've served us really well together in the last two Six Nations , but Iain has given us the right sort of headache."