Steve Waugh’s Australians travelled to Gallipoli to get them in the right mindset for the 2001 Ashes. We must assume that Ireland made a similarly inspirational visit to St John’s Wood high street on Saturday morning.
The usually chi-chi thoroughfare is closed for roadworks, where a hive of workers occupied in major excavations are manning JCBs and laying pipe. If Ireland were planning to make it past lunch on day three, they were going to have to dig even deeper than that.
