Ireland team to be announced at 11am
Key reads:
Join The Irish Times Rugby WhatsApp channel to stay up to date with all the latest Six Nations news.
We’re an hour out from Ireland’s team announcement now, hang in there.
In his latest column, Owen Doyle focused on a championship first after Scotland’s Hollie Davidson became the first women to referee a men’s Six Nations game, taking charge of Ireland v Italy.
Just out here making history 😎
Referee Hollie Davidson made history on Saturday, where she took charge of the men’s Six Nations clash between Ireland and Italy in Dublin. She became the first female official to referee for a men’s game in our championship 🏆#GuinnessM6N… pic.twitter.com/4VJokMGDwP
— Guinness Men’s Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby) February 16, 2026
“The previous week’s results – a win for Italy and a defeat for Ireland – greatly increased the challenge for Hollie Davidson,” he writes, “Becoming the first woman to referee in the men’s Six Nations is a truly brilliant achievement. It was a merit-based appointment and we will see more of her at this level.”
Although Craig Casey’s yellow card may be thought a little harsh, Doyle notes, “Casey needed to make some effort to position himself for a legal tackle”, so no qualms there.
Referee Hollie Davidson shows Ireland’s Craig Casey a yellow card during the game against Italy. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho
Though there were a few perplexing moments.
“With the intensity ratcheting up, we saw a few incorrect and questionable decisions,” Doyle adds, citing a last-minute penalty against debutant Edwin Edogbo.
“(He) seemed to do as he was told, but was pinged anyway. If Davidson considered that he had slowed down Italian possession, then she probably felt a penalty was necessary. It was all very debatable and therefore, the wise course of action was to play on.”
Read Owen’s column in full below:
[ Hollie Davidson had a very good first half, but a few calls were perplexingOpens in new window ]
After their early Grand Slam hopes were dashed last weekend, will England’s shaken confidence offer opportunity for Andy Farrell’s side at Twickenham or will they go the way of the Scots and silence their doubters in front of a home crowd?
Ireland are hoping for the latter, but they’ll still have to put in the work. Nathan Johns looked at last Saturday’s Calcutta Cup fixture and has some thoughts on what Ireland can learn from our Celtic cousins to test England.
Finn Russell led with his boot for Scotland against England last weekend. Photograph: Steve Welsh/PA
“If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then many an indirect compliment could well be heading Scotland’s way from Ireland’s training centre in Abbotstown,” Nathan writes, picking out the kicking battle, the breakdown and a balanced attack as the key areas Ireland should target.
Read Nathan’s analysis in full below:
[ How Ireland can beat England and what they can learn from ScotlandOpens in new window ]
England v Ireland is this weekend’s opener (side note: Ireland were dealt the opening match in each of the five rounds), while Scotland travel to Cardiff to face Wales in Saturday’s late game (kick-off 4.40pm), followed by France v Italy in Paris on Sunday (kick-off 3.10pm).
England v Ireland and France v Italy will be televised live on RTÉ2 and ITV1, while Virgin Media One and BBC One will have live coverage of Wales v Scotland.
England head coach Steve Borthwick got his selection out of the way nice and early, dropping his team on Tuesday.
This is how they’ll line out on Saturday:
ENGLAND (v Ireland): Freddie Steward, Tommy Freeman, Ollie Lawrence, Fraser Dingwall, Henry Arundell; George Ford, Alex Mitchell; Ellis Genge, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Joe Heyes; Maro Itoje (capt), Ollie Chessum; Tom Curry, Ben Earl, Henry Pollock.
Replacements: Jamie George, Bevan Rodd, Trevor Davison, Alex Coles, Guy Pepper, Sam Underhill, Jack van Poortvliet, Marcus Smith.
As is tradition on the eve of Ireland team announcements, Gerry Thornley has predicted who he thinks Andy Farrell will name in his matchday squad for Saturday’s game.
Short version: Crowley in, Prendergast out. No, like, out out.
Gerry believes Munster’s Jack Crowley is set to get his first start of this campaign at outhalf, with no room for Sam Prendergast in the matchday 23 as Ciarán Frawley will likely be named on the 6-2 bench as he can cover much of the backfield.
Jack Crowley during an Ireland training session on Tuesday. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho
Here’s Gerry’s predicted Ireland side to play England, and you can read his reasonings in full below:
IRELAND (possible v England): Jamie Osborne; Robert Baloucoune, Garry Ringrose, Stuart McCloskey, James Lowe; Jack Crowley, Jamison Gibson-Park; Jeremy Loughman, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, James Ryan, Joe McCarthy, Tadhg Beirne, Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris (capt).
Replacements: Rónan Kelleher, Tom O’Toole, Finlay Bealham, Jack Conan, (two from Edwin Edogbo, Cormac Izuchukwu and Nick Timoney), Craig Casey, Ciarán Frawley.
Here’s how the championship table looks after two rounds:
It’s always good to start with a quick refresher of last weekend, so here’s the abridged version of round two.
Ireland welcomed Italy to Dublin in the opening fixture of round two, with the two sides having taken contrasting results over the first round – Italy beating Scotland in Rome after Ireland were humbled by France in Paris.
So, a buoyant Azzurri came to the Aviva and really made their hosts earn it, a weighty sigh of relief emanating from the Ireland coaching box at full-time.
[ Ireland dig deep to see off considerable Italy challenge in Six NationsOpens in new window ]
Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu lifts the Calcutta Cup after their win over England. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images
At Murrayfield, Scotland did exactly what Scotland tend to do, bouncing back from an opening loss away to Italy to shock high-flying England. Finn Russell pulled the strings, the Scots reclaimed the Calcutta Cup, and Gregor Townsend lives to fight another day.
[ Storming Scotland stun England to seal Calcutta Cup gloryOpens in new window ]
Wales’ Josh Adams and France’s Theo Attissogbe contest a high ball. Photograph: Billy Stickland/Inpho
For poor Wales, the silver lining was that things didn’t get much worse. After a drubbing by England in round one, their 54-12 defeat against France in Cardiff on Sunday felt like it could have gone a lot worse, especially since Antoine Dupont, Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Thomas Ramos et al were all in flying form. As we know, those fantastic French are hard to stomach when it’s your tryline their trotting over.
[ Imperious France enjoy eight-try romp over sorry Wales in CardiffOpens in new window ]
Good morning! We’re back bright and early as Andy Farrell is due to name his for Ireland’s third round Six Nations game against England.
After last weekend’s win over Italy at the Aviva Stadium, Ireland are on their travels this time out, heading to Twickenham where they have another 2.10pm kick-off on Saturday.
The team announcement is due to land at 11am.
In the meantime, we’ll be going through all of the latest Six Nations news, comment and analysis, and looking ahead to this weekend’s fixtures.
Ireland’s Tadhg Furlong is tackled by Italy’s Manuel Zuliani during last weekend’s Six Nations game in Dublin. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho