The most recent of those victories in 2007 was one of the most memorable moments in Irish sport as England were humbled 43-13 in their first visit to Croke Park. But Horan, who is Ireland’s second most capped prop of all time, said the bitter disappointment felt after last season’s defeat to England at Twickenham was still fresh in his mind.
“I am expecting a tough, physical battle on Saturday and even more so now given England’s defeat to Wales two weeks ago,” Horan said.
“They are a team which is probably hurting and they will want to prove a point for their inspirational coach Martin Johnson, a guy who is under huge pressure. The England players will want to do right by him.
“England are always tough opponents, especially at set piece time. They have big men and are very physical. From our point of view the last few weeks will mean nothing unless we put in a big performance up front and set the platform. It will be very tough. A wounded team like England is a very dangerous team.
“Their defence is very strong. They are tough to break down. The tries they conceded against wales were opportunist scores.
“We will be hurting after also year’s display over in Twickenham. We have a lot to prove in that aspect of things.
“The defeat 12 months ago will be a driving force for us.”
Horan, who will earn his 64th international cap this Saturday, told irishrugby.ie that while some commentators and supporters may be looking ahead to a potential Grand Slam showdown with Wales in the final series of games, the Irish players were just focusing on England.
“No one here is thinking beyond England,” Horan stressed.
“No one would show the disrespect to any team in thinking beyond this game. We have analysed England as well as we can over the past two weeks. They will be hurting and they will want to prove a point to a lot of their critics. That is a dangerous place to be. We need to up our game. last year over in Twickenham was hugely disappointing for us. We let ourselves down a bit and we want to put that right. We need to keep fighting and fighting to the end.
“If we can start well and put them under pressure, then maybe the doubts will start to creep in. But that will be down to us, how we approach the game and the physicality.”
Horan’s front row colleague John Hayes will equal Malcolm O’Kelly’s record number of 92 caps in Saturday’s game.
The match will see out-half Ronan O’Gara win his 90th cap and in doing so he will join O’Kelly, Hayes and Brian O’Driscoll as the only players to have won over 90 caps for Ireland.
Ireland have named an unchanged starting XV for the third week in a row to take on England at Croke Park in Saturday’s clash. The sole change to the Match Day 22 from the games against France and Italy sees Malcolm O’Kelly, who did not make it into the expanded 36-man squad named before this game, replaced in the substitutes by Munster lock and back-row forward Mick O’Driscoll.
Coach Declan Kidney said England’s much improved showing against Wales indicated that Ireland can expect a formidable challenge from Martin Johnson’s side.
“England’s performance in the last match against the Welsh was well up on the week before,” said Kidney.
“I suppose that the other thing that concerns me is the quality of the people in the background. I’ve worked with Mike Ford before and my respect for Martin Johnson is huge. What’s also important is that they’ve had two free weeks in the run-up to this match. If they made that much of an improvement in one week in between Italy and Wales, who knows what kind of improvements they’ve made in the past fortnight?
“That two-week preparation is a new thing for England because before they might have been playing Guinness Premiership matches in between.
“You can’t overstate the importance of that to any team - getting proper preparation time in between matches.”
Colm Kinsella
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