Owen Farrell kicked England to a 12-6 win over Ireland in the Six Nations on Sunday, installing his team as favorite to win the tournament.
The unflappable flyhalf booted two penalties in either half to settle a hard-fought, tetchy match played in driving rain at Lansdowne Road and clinch England a second straight victory in this year's competition.
After its first competitive win in Dublin in 10 years, England is now the only team that can win the Grand Slam.
"I'm chuffed for Owen Farrell but also the maturity of the whole team," England coach Stuart Lancaster said. "The stakes have always been high but they go even higher with France coming to Twickenham next off the back of a defeat (to Wales) yesterday. That game will be massive."
The Irish, who beat Wales 30-22 last weekend, struggled to adapt to the dreadful weather conditions and were 6-0 behind at halftime, but they leveled the score at 6-6 after 57 minutes thanks to two penalties by substitute Ronan O'Gara.
Farrell, though, finished the Irish off with two more kicks under pressure, confirming his status as the heir apparent to Jonny Wilkinson.
"If you practice enough it's only another kick. I kick thousands of them," Farrell said. "Conditions out there weren't great but we rolled our sleeves up and got stuck in."
Aside from its string of handling errors — nine in the opening 36 minutes — that botched promising attacking positions, Ireland wasn't helped either by first-half injuries to Simon Zebo and Jonathan Sexton that robbed the team of two of its key backs by the 32nd minute.
Throw in Brian O'Driscoll's chaotic build-up to the match — he started despite being with his wife, Amy, for the birth of their baby girl on the morning of the game — and Ireland couldn't have made life more difficult for itself.
In Farrell, England has arguably the best kicker in the tournament and he calmly booted long-range penalties in the third and 29th minutes as Ireland was kept scoreless in the first half.
The English became ruffled after the break, though, making a mess of two early lineouts and then getting pulverized at a scrum to allow O'Gara to reduce the deficit to three points in the 45th.
The Irish were given further hope when flanker James Haskell was sent to the sin-bin in the 57th for interfering with the ball illegally at a ruck, and O'Gara kicked the resulting penalty to make it 6-6.
However, England coped well a man light and forced errors that were punished by two penalties from Farrell in a three-minute span to see the match out for arguably the team's biggest away win in Stuart Lancaster's short reign.