Six Nations: England have learnt lessons, says Leicester Tigers' Toby Flood

Leicester Tigers fly-half Toby Flood insists England must make up for the pain of 2011 in Dublin when they seek a Six Nations Grand Slam in Cardiff tomorrow.

Stuart Lancaster's men head to the Millennium Stadium unbeaten in this year's tournament.

They were in the same position when they faced Ireland away from home two years ago but came up well short on the day.

Flood says the pain of that defeat at the Aviva Stadium still hurts to this day.

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But the 27-year-old, who starts tomorrow on the bench, believes lessons have been learned from that fateful day and says Saturday offers a great shot at redemption for an England team he insists will go into the clash as underdogs.

"We just have to get it right this time," he said.

"This is a big opportunity to make up for what was a really poor performance and annoying day for us in Dublin two years ago.

"That defeat still hurts now. We need to give ourselves the best chance to go out there and have a good go at it and we must be fully focused.

"The start to the game will be massive for both teams and will be the biggest thing on the day. You never want to be in a situation when you are so far behind that you cannot get back into it.

"We have to be precise and be in the game for as long as we can and cause them a few problems.

"We cannot afford to go there and wonder what might happen if we had done this and that."

Flood, who kicked all of his country's points in their turgid 18-11 win over Italy at Twickenham last Saturday, believes the in-form Welsh will be favourites for the contest.

And he says that is not a bad scenario for the England team to embrace.

"Wales will be pretty happy going into the game," said Flood. "They know that they can win the Championship too and they have been playing pretty well.

"We will go there as underdogs and mentally for us, that is not a bad place to be.

"Our win over Italy last weekend has made it similar to 2011 again. Back then, we got a scare against Scotland but we came out on the right side of things only to get dismantled by Ireland.

"The guys that were involved in that, like myself, will hopefully be able to mention a few things this week so we can learn from it.

"Two years ago, there was nothing to lose for Ireland. Their aim was to ruin our party. This weekend will be different though because there are two teams that could win the tournament so we have to get it right.