Tommy Martin: Six Nations needs the Scots to tear up a boring script

A LONG EIGHT: It's eight years since Scotland last defeated Ireland in the Six Nations. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

It’s a miracle really that the Six Nations doesn’t get boring.

It is, essentially, the same thing every year. For example, this week we are looking forward to a crucial game against Scotland which will have a big bearing in the destination of the championship, 11 months after our last crucial game against Scotland which had a big bearing on the destination of the championship.

And we can’t get enough of it. Previews! Analysis! Podcasts! How will Ireland handle Finn Russell? I mean, probably the same way they did less than a year ago, but yes, let’s talk about that. Is Ireland’s superior forward power a key factor? Er, yeah, but do go on. Will the Scots flatter to deceive despite high expectations? Ok, you’re annoying me now.

Other leagues have promotion and relegation to keep things interesting, but the Six Nations prides itself on each nation having the same five games every year, just in a slightly different order. It’s a reminder that while capitalism tells us we want choice and variety, what we actually crave is the familiar — coffee in the morning, Sunday roast, Blair Kinghorn getting trampled under Andrew Porter’s monstrous limbs every spring.

The Six Nations is less sports tournament than delicate ecosystem, or as delicate as anything which has Joe McCarthy in it can be. It has sprouted up in the northern European tundra and succeeded in harsh conditions, as anyone who has spent a weekend in Cardiff will testify. It thrives despite the small gene pool, with evidence of inbreeding limited to the royal box at Twickenham.

Instead, the various species have evolved in their own unique ways, symbiotically nurturing each other, mainly by keeping all the TV money for themselves and shutting out anyone else in Europe who’s interested in rugby but whose capitals don’t offer the same short-hop city break advantages.

Even the inclusion of Italy seems to be paying off, with the Azzurri finally competitive after a painful quarter century assimilation process. Throughout those years, Six Nations top brass would often ponder the rights and wrongs of Italian participation while sipping Barolo as the late spring sun declined on a Roman piazza, before generously deciding to persist with the experiment for another while at least.

There has been some talk that South Africa will eventually follow the path beaten by their club sides and join the Six Nations, but this prospect should be greeted with caution. While the Springboks would definitely make the tournament more competitive, the current White House administration is evidence that not everything is improved by adding South Africans.

Of course, just because the Six Nations has been flourishing for 25 years, doesn’t mean that it will always do so. Like any ecosystem, one part dying off could lead to total environmental catastrophe. Which is a polite way of describing Welsh rugby at the moment. Friday night’s defeat in Paris might have been a canary in the coalmine moment if only there weren’t already a row of dead canaries stuffed and mounted in the WRU headquarters.

There was nothing surprising about the 43-0 hammering other than France deciding to offer Antoine Dupont his dressing gown and slippers after 49 minutes, thereby sparing further agony. The surprise is how competitive Wales have been in the Six Nations given the administration of their domestic game in recent decades, which could not have been more badly botched had Tom Jones and Uncle Bryn been in charge.

Only France can match them for Grand Slams won in the Six Nations era (four) while their six titles are joint second with France and Ireland in the overall roll of honour, one behind England. For all their limitations of size and structural mismanagement, it is incalculable how much Wales have added to the lustre of the tournament by being, at any given time, capable of smashing the English in front of 70,000 incredibly drunk fellow countrymen.

A hopeless Welsh team greatly disturbs the fragile equilibrium that has sustained the tournament for so long. For most of the last quarter century the Six Nations had four teams who had a realistic chance of winning, one that had no chance and one that thought they had a chance but actually had no chance (sorry Scotland).

Which brings us nicely to this weekend in Edinburgh and the realisation that, narrow patriotism aside, the overall health of the Six Nations could really do with Scotland winning this one. You can see why Ireland has become the white whale for Scottish rugby and it’s not just because of that record of one win in the last 16 meetings.

If Ireland didn’t exist, Scotland could pat themselves on the back and say that they were actually doing very well for a country that has marginal interest in the sport. In Scotland, once the main national topics of football, fish suppers and lager are accounted for, there is room for very little else. Sure, Murrayfield sells out for Scotland rugby matches, but that’s because they have been told there is lager there.

Rugby in Scotland is sustained by a small subsection of the population whose dedication to their Scottishness means they will sometimes actually name their children Hamish without any sense of irony. To have a team competing as well as theirs does against more enthusiastic rugby nations would be quite impressive, were Ireland not doing it substantially better.

Put simply, there is a vacancy for another proper team in the Six Nations now that Welsh rugby appears to have gone the way of the coalmines and Ian Rush’s moustache. If Scotland are to be that team, then they must shake off the very identity that has made them such a beloved part of the Six Nations, or at least a beloved part of the Six Nations if you are Irish and you keep beating them.

Being talented wastrels who flunk at the sight of a green jersey may be Scotland’s role in the Six Nations ecosystem, but if they keep at it any longer things really will start getting boring.