A War Of Politeness

The build up to the today's England v Ireland match has mostly consisted of both teams saying nice things about each other. Luther Burrell is honoured to play against Brian O'Driscoll, Conor Murray thinks Danny Care is one of the best scrumhalves in the world and Owen Farrell has a great passing range, Joe Schmidt predicts England will be the biggest test he's faced as Ireland's head coach. At this point it's hard to imagine these two sets of players knocking lumps out of each other in a few hours time, since they're all so in awe of their opponents.