DONAL LENIHAN: No dressing this one up — and it may get worse

This must rank as one of the most disappointing defeats for an Ireland side in the Six Nations championship for a long, long time.

For a long period in the 90s, Ireland couldn’t buy a win in Murrayfield but that was against a succession of very decent Scottish outfits.

This, however, is not a good Scotland team and how Ireland contrived to lose yesterday’s context from a position of relative strength — leading by eight points after Craig Gilroy’s try early in the second half — is a mystery.