Why Scotland will provide a stiffer test to Ireland than ailing Italy

As good as Ireland’s performance was in throwing off the shackles to score a Six Nations record nine tries against Italy last Saturday, a confident Scotland side, who visit Dublin on Saturday, will pose more searching questions. Here’s why.

Set-piece

Italy’s lineout has been close to shambolic for the past two seasons and their threat at the scrum has been diminished of late, although there were few opportunities to put that theory to the test against Ireland in a game of just 11 scrums.