Ireland will have to put in ``the performance of their lives'' if they are to stop the England juggernaut's pursuit of the Grand Slam, according to coach Eddie O'Sullivan.
The two unbeaten sides clash at Lansdowne Road tomorrow in a winner-takes-all RBS 6 Nations showdown and O'Sullivan knows his team are the underdogs.
``I think we have to play to our potential - that's the key for any team,'' he said.
``The players can only do that themselves. We can't turn them into supermen overnight so the key for us is to go out and give the performance of our lives, that's all it's about really.
``If we give the performance of our lives then England will have to play out of their shirts to beat us.
``That's our plan, it's a very simple plan. To go out and play to the very best of our ability and I think if we do that in front of our home crowd I think England will have a lot of problems.''
Ireland are in with a chance of their first Six Nations Grand Slam since 1948, although their last Triple Crown success was in 1985.
However, England - despite dominating northern hemisphere rugby for the last couple of years, are still searching for their first clean sweep under coach Clive Woodward's leadership.
The stakes are as high as they can possibly get, but with England having lost Grand Slam deciders in three of the past four seasons - 1999, 2000 and 2001 - O'Sullivan knows there is immense pressure on Woodward's team to deliver.
``England will be cognisant of the fact that this is their fifth crack at a Grand Slam and it hasn't happened for them,'' he added.
``I'm sure they are planning to make it happen Sunday so that does bring a burden on any team no matter how tough they are - and they are a tough side.
``To be fair to them, they have dug themselves out of a few holes in the autumn particularly against Australia. That game looked like it had slipped away and they bounced back and won it with a certain panache.''
And O'Sullivan warned England they would not find it easy to walk away with victory on Irish soil.
``They're the best rugby team in the world, we're not getting away from that but they still have to come here and play what will probably be 90 minutes of rugby and we want to take it all the way to the wire and see what happens,'' the coach told www.irishrugby.ie.
``There's no doubt that away wins in the Six Nations are very difficult to achieve. The support we get at Lansdowne Road when the crowd gets behind the team, I don't know what it's worth, it's hard to quantify, but it seems to makes them (the players) six inches taller, they run two seconds faster and they hit
10 kilos heavier.
``That's the home factor. Certainly Lansdowne Road has produced that for us and no doubt it will again.''