Ireland U20 defence coach Kieran Campbell has described the home support at Musgrave Park for Friday’s memorable Six Nations victory over a much-fancied England as “humbling”.

Spurred on by the electric atmosphere in the Cork venue, the David Hawkshaw-led Irish recovered from a shaky start to record a 35-27 triumph.

“It was humbling to see the support and the passion of the fans. After we got the final try and we were trying to get the messages down to close the game out, the players could not hear us. That gives you some reflection of what the support was like,” said Campbell.

“We were delighted to get that type of support. We hope that we’ve given them a good show in the England game and that we’ll get a huge return again come the French game. We’re going to need that. The English guys even talked about how intimidating it was post-game. The level of noise at times was deafening. It creates the atmosphere which we can thrive in and hopefully it’s a little bit hostile for the opposition.”

On a night when Ireland dug deep to overpower a formidable English pack, Scott Penny was particularly impressive at openside flanker.

The Dubliner has already made significant strides in the PRO14 with Leinster — with two tries in four starts for Leo Cullen’s outfit.

“Scott is a quality player. He wouldn’t be the loudest guy, it’s more how he leads in what he does,” Campbell said.

“You talk about England being big, it’s pretty difficult when they’re getting smashed in behind the gainline. That’s what Scott brought to it. He was really the guy who engineered the line speed in the game, which allowed us get into their big guys and make sure they didn’t generate momentum.”

A new addition to Noel McNamara’s coaching team, Campbell is embracing his return to an Irish setup. He picked up three senior international caps in his playing days and also featured at the 2009 World Cup Sevens. In terms of how he has developed the defensive side of Ireland’s game, Campbell acknowledged the presence of Andy Farrell in previous training camps gave him an ideal platform to work off.

“Andy was in some of our sessions. We’ve great cohesion with the senior side. Without giving too much away, we’re using the same kind of technical knowledge from him. That’s certainly given us a good basis to work from,” Campbell said.