Six Nations: Irish and Scotland both in the mood for farewell party

Cheltenham week, St Patrick’s Day and Ireland going for the Six Nations. We have come to expect a certain standard of entertainment for the third weekend in March over the last while but alas no more, the rugby element of the shindig has not come up to scratch this year.

This evening at Aviva Stadium the holders will bow out against Scotland, their crown long since handed back and about to passed on to a resurgent England. After capturing the nation’s attention in successive years with last-day glory-hunting in Paris and Edinburgh, Ireland head into round five with nothing but third to play for

For those invested and involved in the outcome, however, there is much on the line. With three Tests in South Africa in June and a November schedule that begins with a Chicago appointment with New Zealand and then sees those world champion All Blacks, as well as Australia, visit Dublin, Ireland need all the positives they can take into the rest of 2016.

After a home draw with Wales and defeats in France and England, Joe Schmidt’s injury-hit squad finally recaptured that winning feeling last Saturday when they hammered hapless Italy as spring arrived in the capital and tries came back into fashion following the meagre fare of the first three rounds.

It was a first win since France were dispatched in Cardiff last October in the final round of World Cup pool games, since which everything had been off kilter. Outgoing captain Paul O’Connell left the scene on his shield that day, and Ireland have missed the stricken Peter O’Mahony, Tommy Bowe and Iain Henderson, while Mike Ross’s, Cian Healy’s and Sean O’Brien’s involvement has also been limited by injury.

Integrating new faces has been inevitable and head coach Schmidt has handed out five new caps, compared with two in his first season and none last year. The experience can only stand to this Ireland squad for the future but it has made for challenging times in the present, which for a coach who lives in the now and treats each game in isolation has not been easy to accept.

With those tough weeks has come signs of dissent, from outside the squad, about the way the head coach conducts his business and for the first time in his gilded coaching career in advance of the Italy game, Schmidt admitted he was feeling the pressure.

He signed off on the Italy week revealing the preceding weeks had all been a bit “depressing”, but the chance to continue winning ways against Scotland is no longer the banker it once was. The team hammered on the last day at Murrayfield 12 months ago en route to a successful Irish title defence are no longer fellow travellers with the Italians.

After wins in Rome and at home to France in successive games, they come to Dublin in expectation as well as hope under the guidance of Schmidt’s close friend Vern Cotter. For the Irish boss, Scotland’s renaissance has been long signalled, even when Cotter was accepting the wooden spoon in 2015 after a five-game wipeout.

“You only have to look at the margins, and the margins were there last year even though they didn’t quite get the results,” pointed out Schmidt.

“The (losing) margin this year against England was a one-score game. It was a one-score game against Wales and even then Wales get a try at the start of the game that to me looked like a knock-on and it was picked up by a player who was offside.

“They could easily have got great field position as opposed to (conceding) seven points and standing under their posts. We all know those are the margins and they do fall either way sometimes. But losses like that have been very impressive, and then there’s the wins they’ve had, like what they did in Italy. It is tough to go to Rome. We found it really tough last year and we were a team that had really good continuity. They are still building and did a great job there, and then as much as it was quite tight for a long time, it didn’t look like they were going to lose against France.”

The small margins have also stacked up to big disappointment for Schmidt’s Ireland this season. While Scotland will be going for three championship wins in a row for the first time since 1996 and victory today will bring a third-place finish that will be their best effort since Five Nations became Six in 2000, third for Ireland will represent the best of a bad lot.

Yet this evening’s contest looks to be one between two well-matched teams and if the dry weather holds as expected both sets of players will come to entertain, with Scotland’s back three possessing an X-factor in Stuart Hogg, Tommy Seymour and Tim Visser to at least match the verve seen from Ireland in that top fourth try of nine against Italy.

The free-flowing rugby may have been in short supply through the wind, rain and muck of the opening few rounds but the appetite to put on another show for Ireland’s supporters is evident. There may be a rugby party this weekend after all.

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