Easterby minds Ireland's house with a spruce-up and hat-trick on agenda

Today at 08:53 AM

Stand-in head coach and his Leinster-heavy squad have a unique achievement in their sights

For Simon Easterby this is like house-minding. In theory he has the run of the gaff but the owner, Andy Farrell, is not far away and liable to check how things are going. By no means would that same owner be a control freak – an unusual state of affairs in this line of business – but he has invested a lot of himself in the project. No harm to keep tabs then.

If you were Easterby you would welcome the contact. His short tenure as Ireland head minder coincides with the possibility of a unique achievement: three Six Nations titles in a row. It's far from the Championship hat-tricks Ireland fans were reared on so it's worth reflecting on how this happened, and perhaps what we can learn from the last time we were paused at these traffic lights.