Friday 17 March 2017 08:06, UK
Joe Schmidt has instructed Ireland to ignore Eddie Jones’ barbs ahead of Saturday’s Six Nations finale against England in Dublin.
Jones pre-match mind games have become a regular feature of the build-up to England games since he became head coach and he attempted to get into Ireland's heads by predicting "kick-and-clap" rugby from Schmidt's men at the Aviva Stadium.
The Ireland head coach refused to take the bait, however, and reminded Jones that a similar claim 12 months ago proved to be incorrect.
When asked about Jones' comments, Schmidt said: "I haven't really seen it. There's always external noise and if we get distracted by that it's not going to be productive for us.
"And I think last year he might have said that we kicked 60 per cent of the ball that we had. And when it was mentioned to him that England kicked the ball more than we did it probably wasn't convenient at the time.
"So we'll do what we try to do best, and I know Eddie will have England really well-prepared to do what they do best, which is apply a heck of a lot of pressure.
"The outcome will be based around a variety of tactics, certainly not one."
Saturday's game features an intriguing father-vs-son subplot with Ireland defence coach Andy Farrell facing his son Owen - who will start at inside centre for England.
Schmidt says Ireland have no special plans in place to curtail Farrell's influence but he was effusive in his praise of the Saracens star's contributions for England during this tournament.
"Yeah I've no doubt Andy knows Owen really well," said Schmidt.
"Andy hasn't really mentioned him so far as giving any insights about the individual, but he's mentioned him as part of the team.
"You couldn't really identify George Ford and Owen Farrell and not mention Jonathan Joseph because he was incredibly dangerous last week and did a fantastic job for them last week.
"So any one of those three is an incredible threat and I think with George Ford and Owen Farrell there they've got a real variety in what they can do.
"They are both incredibly good kickers of the ball; their passing game is very strong.
"George Ford has great acceleration and Owen Farrell has great acceleration and hits good lines too.
"I think we've seen him all championship get advantage line, not because he's a huge guy.
"Ben Te'o coming off the bench can get it any which way he likes, but Owen just picks nice lines, good timing, and so we've obviously had a look at that, because we don't want him picking good lines and unpicking us."
