Ireland have another reason to beat England next week and not many people know about it

This Six Nations could get a hell of a lot worse.

We suppose we can be thankful that Ireland host England on the last day of this year's championship. With Ireland pretty much out of the running to secure another title, at least there will be plenty of motivation in attempting to stop the English juggernaut. Regardless of England's result against Scotland, they will be playing for the championship on the last day and if they do manage to beat the Scots, then they will have the chance to create history by winning 19 consecutive Test matches, surpassing the All Blacks record of 18. If that isn't enough for the Irish players to be tearing down the walls of Carton House this week then we don't know what is. Just on the off chance that they may need some extra motivation, then they will surely be clued in by the Irish management when it comes to the world rankings. Ireland are currently in fourth but have dropped a point due to their loss to Wales. The gap between Ireland and Scotland (who are in fifth) is now just one point. This means that if Ireland are to maintain their top four ranking and their top seeding for the Rugby World Cup draw, then they will need to beat England, as Scotland are likely to beat Italy in Murrayfield on the last day of the championship. SportsJOE's Pat McCarry was speaking to Donnacha Ryan after last night's defeat and the Tipperary native said the squad will not get distracted by issues surrounding world rankings and that they will just focus on the formidable task of beating England.

"I suppose all that stuff takes care of itself (rankings). I'm sure the management staff will maybe mention things. "From our point of view we're looking at reviewing today what we got wrong, what we did right, we did a lot of good things this evening and that shouldn't be overlooked and that's what we're programmed to do you know? Focus on the task in hand rather than getting bogged down on external things like that."

Of course, Ireland could find themselves in serious trouble if Scotland managed to beat England at Twickenham but we just can't contemplate that right now...