But they showed no signs of being cowed at Adams Park as the English forwards provided a supply of high-quality ball for their outside backs to attack with full-back Anthony Watson, winger Marland Yarde and scrum-half Dan Robson crossing in their 20-9 victory.

And while Walker paid tribute to Ireland’s performance, he was particularly proud of how the English pack fronted up.

“I was very proud of the boys today,” he said. “We can’t just have that pride and passion - we bring that every week, it’s the performance that we needed.

“We spoke about learning from the France game last week. Especially at the set-piece, at the scrum we identified we weren’t at the races last week and we were eager to improve that. The way started in the scum today, we were dominant.

“All due respect to Ireland – they gave us a tough game. They were good, very physical and it was a little bit of a scrappy game.

“It was a good contest – maybe the scoreline didn’t reflect how tight it was.”

The next stage for the England Under-20’s is to take their RBS 6 Nations form into the summer’s Junior World Championship where they have reached the final in three of the last four years only to fall victim to the all-conquering New Zealand side.

But Walker remains confident that providing the pack can maintain a steady stream of possession, then their livewire backs can wreak havoc on the meanest of defences.

 “We’ve got a lot of firepower outside,” he said. “If we can get them decent first-phase ball, which we struggled to do a little bit last week, then they’ll cut teams apart.

“There’s loads of improving to do which I suppose is a good sign because we can win, and know we can still take strides forward.”