Scotland's Richie Gray braced for latest scrape with Peter O'Mahony

It’s been 15 years since O’Mahony and Gray shared a pitch in Perth together as teenagers and the Munster man made an instant impression on his opponent who has been equally fulsome in his praise of an abrasive, clever, athletic player.

OLD SPARRING PARTNER: Scotland's Richie Gray during a training session. Pic: David Davies/PA Wire

From the depths of time a warning. 

It was March of 2009 and a talented Ireland U20s side had squeaked a trio of wins out of their first three Six Nations games against France, Italy, and England. The fourth leg was a trip to McDiarmuid Park in Perth and a date with a Scottish side that had waxed and waned.

Sounds familiar.

That Irish team was bulging with soon-to-be stars. Dave Kearney, Ian McKinley, and Ian Madigan in the backline. Jack McGrath, Rhys Ruddock, and Peter O’Mahony up front. Conor Murray only made it as far as the bench and the likes of Matt Healy, Paddy McAllister, and Dominic Ryan would go on to big things too.

Scotland were less bejewelled but they did have a few gems. Richie Gray and Stuart McInally (at the time still a back row) in the pack, Henry Pyrgos pulling strings at the back, and current senior attack coach Peter Horne among the reserves. The hosts scored four tries and won by 15 points.

Gregor Townsend would dearly love a win of that magnitude this weekend in Saint-Denis and, if a run of eight games without a win against Ireland suggests that is beyond them, then Gray knows better than most that it isn’t impossible.

Now 34, the 6’ 9” second row has played Ireland nine times at senior level and, remarkably, he has come out the right side in four of them: in Croke Park in 2010 and at Murrayfield in 2011, 2013, and 2017. He has won when Ireland have been the better team and lost when Scotland seemed to have at least as much to be happy with in terms of performance.

Ultimately, he knows there is no magic formula with all this.

“Ireland are the No 1 team in the world and they’re strong across the board, there are no player weaknesses. We just have to play as well as we’ve ever done, it’s as simple as that. We need to go out and be physical and abrasive but play to our DNA as well.” 

Townsend has placed a particular emphasis on the physical dimension this weekend. It was with this in mind that he opted for a 6/2 split on the bench with the sixth of those forwards coming in the form of hefty 6’ 5” flanker Luke Crosbie.

There is a sense here of two camps rolling up their sleeves and spitting on their hands ahead of the contest to come and there aren’t many players better suited to this than Peter O’Mahony who earns his 100th cap for his country Saturday night.

Finn Russell spoke earlier in the week about how “there might be someone like Peter O’Mahony trying to start something, handbags or something like that”, and Jamie Ritchie was asked about a supposed penchant for dropping the odd putdown during a game.

In fairness to Ritchie, he painted a far more rounded picture with his answer. So did Gray.

It’s been 15 years since O’Mahony and Gray shared that pitch in Perth together as teenagers and the Munster man made an instant impression on his opponent who has been equally fulsome in his praise of an abrasive, clever, athletic player.

“I remember [him from that U20s game] because he ran around the corner and he belted me! I remember looking around thinking, ‘that was a decent hit’, and I remember it being him. And we’ve had a few tussles since.” 

Gray made sure to note O’Mahony’s input at lineout as well. Normally such a consistent source of scores for teams at Test level, it was a pipeline that both Ireland and Scotland found all but severed for long periods against the Springboks in Pool B.

Ireland, whose play from touch has been ropey since the warm-ups, lost their first four against the world champions. Scotland’s malfunctioned in the second-half when South Africa also scored two quick tries to end the game as a contest.

This will be a game within a game.

“What we were unhappy about was that we caused a lot of our own problems,” said Gray. “It wasn’t so much the pressure that South Africa caused. I know Ireland had a few issues at the start of the game but what I look at the most was to lose your first four and then come out and rectify that.

“And the way they did it was pretty ballsy, by throwing it to the tail. You’ve got so say fair play for getting yourself back in the game. That’s why they’re the number one team. That would have rattled a lot of sides but they managed to get back into it and win the game.”