England, unbeaten following contrasting victories over Scotland and Italy, head to Croke Park in Dublin for an appointment with pre-tournament favourites Ireland.

England have not beaten Ireland since eight months before they won the 2003 World Cup, and they will travel as underdogs.

But head coach Ashton says she is confident England will deliver a much enhanced performance two weeks after threatening a botched Italian job before struggling past the Azzurri 20-7.

Ashton said: I hope we are going to be a bit more lively around the pitch for 80 minutes.

We tended to be one-dimensional against Italy. We got caught in a one-dimensional game, which was not our intention, but that is the way it went.

We need more dynamism and movement, putting together a game that is going to challenge the Irish defence and putting a defence together that is going to challenge the Irish attack.

I am confident this will be a much-enhanced performance. The players en-bloc were so disappointed with the performance against Italy.

They want to step up two or three gears from there, and to be honest, we know we have to. We cannot get away with that performance again against Ireland.

Ireland have received a significant boost with the return after injury of their inspirational captain Brian O'Driscoll, and Ashton believes his players will relish the significant threat he poses.

To be honest, if you really want to challenge yourself at international level, do you want to play against Ireland without Brian O'Driscoll? Ashton said.

He is a great player, and it is fantastic he is going to be on the field. I am sure our guys are looking forward to matching themselves against him.

From our point of view, the players were not enamoured with the way they played against Italy.

We are very determined to put in a much better performance than we did against Italy.

I have looked in the players' eyes over the last two days, and at this moment in time they are pretty switched on as to what is going to happen on Saturday evening.