Duncan Casey: Scotland are all icing but Ireland's recipe takes the cake

You will rarely see Scotland grind a team down and inflict their ‘slow poison’.

RECEIPE FOR SUCCESS: Ireland's Sam Prendergast celebrates with partner Anna Walsh, centre, parents Mark and Ciara and sister Lara after his Player of the Match performance against Scotland. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

It’s hard for me to sit down and just enjoy a game of rugby if I know I have a column to write. I’m always thinking about the angle I’m going to take or picking out key moments to focus the analysis on. For the first 40 minutes of action in Murrayfield on Sunday, I was convinced I would be talking about how Ireland cantered their way to victory against an underwhelming Scotland who barely fired a shot all afternoon.

You know a team is not at the races when they get a yellow card warning for repeated infringements after 10 minutes. Even more so, when three different players have clearance kicks blocked down deep in their own territory in the opening half an hour, one of which was scrum-half Ben White failing to clear the outstretched arms of Andrew Porter. Ten minutes into the second half, that script had been thrown in the figurative bin as Scotland finally came to life and ruffled some Irish feathers.