Are we really ready for Tartan threat?

AS banana skins go, they don’t come a lot more treacherous than this.

Few need reminding that it's 18 long years since Ireland have beaten Scotland at Murrayfield and in that time they have suffered untold ignominy.

None more so than October 2001 when the Scots overturned the odds in the most ruthless fashion, romping home by 32-10. That experience is too recent for comfort for several members of that irish side who have retained favour in the meantime. The others have had it drilled into them just how dangerous an Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer coached Scottish side tends to be on home soil.

All the usual mind games are being played by both management teams, although this time you have to suspect that Eddie O'Sullivan and the remainder of the Irish backroom boys mean it when they say they don't quite know what to expect come 3pm tomorrow.

In my view, there's a tangible fear in the Irish camp that they will fall yet again at this hurdle. It won't have been eased by the way Scotland dismissed South Africa before Christmas when the old hands like Tom Smith and Graham Bulloch in the front-row, ace lineout jumper Scott Murray in the second-row, Martin Leslie at number six and above all the hugely influential scrum-half Bryan Redpath were hugely influential.

The quintet again forms the core of the Scottish XV and while they will miss Budge Pountney on the open side and may regret preferring the rather pedestrian Gordon Ross to the elegant Gregor Townsend at outhalf, they have a combination that will set the Irish a test they may struggle to pass.

Sure, Leinster and Munster have been doing great things in the Heineken Cup and Celtic League with the Scots mere onlookers but this is a step up again in class and you're not entirely sure that all or even the majority of Irish individuals can raise the bar that high.

I wonder about the true quality of people like Shane Byrne, Reggie Corrigan, Gary Longwell and Victor Costello in the pack and most especially about David Humphreys at outhalf. The four forwards have a lot of caps between them but interestingly all are now in their thirties without ever having commanded the full respect and support of a succession of Irish management teams. You are left to wonder if players of the calibre of Keith Wood, Paul O'Connell and David Wallace will be missed in the forward battle.

If Ireland prevail up front, then there may be little need to worry about David Humphreys. If, on the other hand, Leslie and his fellow back-row marauders are bearing down on him, ball in hand and fire in their eyes, it may be a different story altogether. Hopefully, Ronan O'Gara's guiding influence will not be missed but I'm not so sure.

You suspect that skipper Brian O'Driscoll will emerge as Ireland's game breaker and that he is right when expressing the belief that his team has learned from all the failures of the last 16 years.

"We know what to expect", he says, perhaps a little wishfully. "We know the pace they will play at, that they are a different team at Murrayfield. If we don't beat them, we're on the back foot for the rest of the season. The first game is the key".

So far it's 3-0 in O'Driscoll's favour in the captaincy stakes. The hope, nay the belief, is that he will make it 4-0 tomorrow and so ignite what could well be a memorable Six Nations for the men in green.

But if the Scots pull off their Murrayfield trick yet again, few will be all that surprised.