England mustn't give up the fight but they've got to stop falling foul

Playing with 14 men at Test level nullifies all your attacking options, makes you work so much harder in defence, tires the legs and runs the whole team down.

It is a devastating blow because teams will punish you with seven to 14 points when an opponent is in the sin bin.

While England have been harshly dealt with in some instances they can't complain about the problem because if they weren't giving away penalties then the referee would not be looking at them.

Of course, officials will be more stringent on England because of what has happened in previous matches and we have always worked on the basis that if you give away more than 10 penalties you will, almost certainly, lose the game.

With so many yellow cards and penalties, the danger for England is they stand off the contact situations just to make sure they don't fall foul of the referee and this is the challenge for Martin Johnson and his players.

England still have to compete fiercely, which they did against Wales in the rucks, mauls and line-outs.

We battled for everything and caused Wales no end of problems but also picked up two yellow cards in the process and lost the match.

We must now improve on the performance in Cardiff while reducing that penalty count and that's a big ask at Croke Park where two years ago we lost 43-13 on a very special day.

There was so much emotion surrounding the match following the agreement to let rugby take place in the stadium that it made the action almost secondary. The game was a side show and it was all about the history and the passion of the day, with the playing of God Save the Queen being respected by the crowd.

That was a unique situation and while the atmosphere will be similar it will not reach the emotional levels of two years ago. Tomorrow, the pressure will all be on Ireland, just as it was on Wales who were expected to beat England by a record score.

I am sure Martin will tell his troops that if Ireland are over confident - because they are favourites - then England could cause similar problems.

However, Ireland possess world-class players such as Brian O'Driscoll and Paul O'Connell who will be going on the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa this summer while England have not played well in this championship and not many of their players are looking at places on that tour.

I am pleased England have brought in Toby Flood at outside-half because he did make a positive contribution when he came on against Wales, directing the game and looking to offload in the tackle. He created a threat and produced a kicking game that was more effective than Andy Goode's.

But Ireland are favourites and it will take a very bad day at the office for them to mess this one up.