Visitors can forge a winning new identity under Maro Itoje but the experienced Irish remain marginal favourites. Every Six Nations fixture is a grand occasion but some games are bigger than others. Ireland and England both know how crucial today’s Dublin eliminator will be in terms of establishing early championship momentum. Listening to the upbeat pre-match tone of the visitors’ new captain, Maro Itoje – “I think we have a team that’s ready to write our own stories” – this also feels like a pivotal moment for Steve Borthwick’s whole England project.

A lot has already been said and written since last March’s corresponding match when Marcus Smith drilled a last-gasp drop-goal through the sticks amid ecstatic Twickenham scenes reminiscent of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. England have subsequently played eight Test matches and lost six, beating only Japan twice. The majority of those losses have been tight but close doesn’t win any cigars at the elite level.

This leaves the Borthwick chariot at a precarious tipping point. Overturn the defending champions and the past becomes irrelevant. Lose badly and public perceptions may start to harden again. If it is followed by home defeats against France and Scotland, the under-fire Rugby Football Union hierarchy will have more special general meetings in the diary than the national team has victories. Plenty of other awkward questions would also resurface. Is a 10-team Premiership without the jeopardy of automatic relegation the best preparation for intense Test matches? What price those new “hybrid” contracts supposed to help England’s players arrive at the startline in better nick? Has a mid-season change of captaincy made any discernible difference?.

So, no pressure. Nothing on the line at all, particularly in a Lions year against an Irish team long on experience and big-game smarts. Itoje has more caps (88) than England’s eight replacements combined (81). Ireland’s bench, by contrast, boasts only 59 fewer caps (509) than England’s entire starting XV (568). Cian Healy has been around almost as long as the Book of Kells and, since 2013, Ireland have lost only two of their past 29 home Six Nations fixtures.

This time, admittedly, the hosts do have an interim coach in the shape of Simon Easterby, with Andy Farrell having taken a step back to prepare for this summer’s British & Irish Lions tour. In practice that should not change a huge amount, given the seasoned nature of the squad and its Leinster-dominated makeup. A third successive outright title win would set a record for any side in Five or Six Nations history.

That said, England might just be better suited to tackling Ireland than, say, France because the patterns the Irish tend to use are more familiar and orthodox. Pressure them at the breakdown and attack with energy and home frustration, in theory, could grow. The crackdown on “escort” runners who block chasing opponents, the necessity of forwards to work harder to get back onside when the ball is hoofed upfield, more protection for scrum-halves around the base … it should all encourage more unstructured play and less safety-first attrition.

So can England take thrilling advantage and create a whole new identity for themselves? It brings to mind something England’s then-head coach Eddie Jones said after his side’s sobering 25-13 Calcutta Cup defeat by Scotland at Murrayfield in 2018. Jones, who will be occupying an ITV pundit’s chair in this championship, was adamant English players were kidding themselves if they thought they could prosper by whizzing the ball around like the All Blacks. “We can’t win that way,” he said to us one snowy lunchtime in Oxford’s Randolph Hotel.

“One thing I know is we can’t win playing pattern football. We don’t have the athletic ability to do it. I have them for 13 weeks a year. I can’t suddenly make them more athletic. All I can do is try to maximise the players we have. We’ve got good players but we don’t have the ability to be athletically better than other teams.”. His deputy at the time was none other than Borthwick. As the game becomes ever faster, woe betide teams who cannot keep up and England’s selection reflects that. The head coach could have chosen any number of different back-row combinations but has plumped for the Curry twins, Tom and Ben, with Ben Earl in between them.

Sign up to The Breakdown. The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed. after newsletter promotion. Not since the Currys were both handed the role of Joseph at their school’s nativity play – Ben performed the first half, Tom the second – have the pair shared such a key role and the first twin brothers to start a Test together for England will be central to their country’s fortunes. If they can get Ireland seeing double from the outset and England’s lineout is not too compromised by the relative lack of height in the back row, things could get interesting.