Ireland's Grand Slam winners 'do not have any world-class players' - ex-England player
A former England player, Jeremy Guscott, has said that Ireland's Grand Slam winning side has no world-class players.
It comes merely days after Joe Schmidt's men beat England 24-15 at Twickenham on St Patrick's Day to win their third-ever Grand Slam
Ireland's dominance of the Six Nations, which they won by 11 points, means they now have to be considered genuine World Cup contenders for 2019.
However, Guscott wrote in his column for the BBC that Ireland don't have world-class players.
Guscott, who played 65 times for England, 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."
He did praise the impact of Ireland's new boys, which along with holding on to the 'brains" of their back-to-back titles in 2014/15, was key to their glory this year.
"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."
