Andy Farrell expects England will try to take the wind out of Irish sails when the teams meet in Twickenham on Saturday.
Ireland have won the last two championship meetings by 17 points (32-15 in 2022) and 13 points (29-16 in 2023) but struggled for long periods against 14 men in both games, eventually wearing England down.
Asked if he was confident that Ireland would be able to find a rhythm sooner this time around, he told RTÉ Sport: "I'm not Mystic Meg, I don't know what's going to happen.
"England had a say in how we performed that day [last season].
"You take every game on its own course really and judge it, and England did very well at slowing us down last year.
"There were a lot of stoppages within the game and it wasn't just errors, the game was slow.
"Whether that's a tactic of theirs or not, I don't know, but we'll have to expect more of the same, I would have thought.
"We'll take each minute as it comes, that's the nature of the game.
"That was a year ago, and then we go back a couple of weeks against Wales, we want to do better then as well, so that's always going to be the case."
Farrell's side can win a second consecutive championship with a bonus-point victory in London on Saturday.
Standing in their way are World Cup bronze medalists England, who have beaten Italy and Wales but lost to Scotland last time out.
"I constantly say everyone loves the Six Nations so much because it changes so much week on week," he said.
"Scotland were unbelievably unlucky for all sorts of reasons for not getting over the line against France and I’m sure that concentrates the mind in the next two weeks leading up to the England game.
"I’ve no doubt that England would have loved to have put the best performance out against Scotland and come away with the victory there, which is unbelievably hard to do.
"I’ve no doubt that over the last two weeks that concentrates their mind to have another chance to have a crack at us.
"Again you expect them to be at their best, and if they’re at their best you expect them to be as hard as anyone in world rugby to beat."
Farrell earlier named his team to face England, making just one change with Hugo Keenan returning from injury to take his place at full-back.
Prop Tadhg Furlong (above) will make his 75th appearance and Farrell hailed the 31-year-old tighthead's return to form following an injury-hit 2023.
"He’s in good form," he said.
"He’s injury-free. He has been getting some good continuity as far as game-time is concerned. It was stop-start for him last year, which obviously didn’t help.
"It was a tough old time for him. I have no doubt... obviously throughout his career he has been unbelievably consistent and when that becomes stop-start, it’s hard to handle, I’m sure.
"But now he is back in the rhythm again, he is back to where he needs to be."
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Watch England v Ireland in the Guinness Six Nations on Saturday from 4pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
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