Jeremy Guscott claims ‘Ireland don’t have any world class players’

Former England Rugby Player Jeremy Guscott has claimed that Ireland don’t have any world class players. This comment comes after Ireland beat England in Twickenham on Saturday to claim their third ever Grand Slam.

Ireland completed the five wins with a 24-15 win over England in Twickenham on St Patrick’s Day. England had no answer, they through everything at Joe Schmidt’s team but an excellent defensive strategy by back coach and former England coach Andy Farrell for Ireland held England up.

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Writing for the BBC, Guscott argues that Ireland don’t have world class players.

He said “Ireland, arguably, do not have any world class players in their Grand Slam-winning squad”.

“You could argue there are better scrum-halves and fly-halves than Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton who would get into a world XV. Tadhg Furlong is one you would argue less about. But what they do have are 23 players playing very well.”

Guscott who played 65 times for England also wrote about Ireland’s younger players as being a decisive factor while holding on to the ‘brains” of their back-to-back titles in 2014/15.

“The brains of Ireland’s team from their back-to-back titles are still there this season, but they’ve brought in additions like Jacob Stockdale, Tadhg Furlong and Garry Ringrose.

“They’ve also played with huge accuracy – in the past two seasons, their penalty and error count has gone down and at the moment, England are failing on those counts.”

Guscott is entitled to his opinion but we will direct you to the final table below. It tells you all you need to know about Ireland having world class players.