Scotland won on stats, but Ireland played smarter

DEJECTED: Scotland's Sione Tuipulotu described Ireland's defence as 'probably one of the best I've played'. Pic: PA

Pierre Schoeman shared a story last week about Ben Healy’s experiences in Munster. About how everything the province did in training was so exact, designed to replicate precisely the pictures they would paint that coming weekend.

It didn’t seem an especially illuminating anecdote. Does every team not train so assiduously these days? Maybe not. Add to that Finn Russell’s claim that he hadn’t even thought about practising drop goals ahead of Saturday’s game and you began to wonder.

Ireland have always made a merit of working harder and thinking smarter than everyone else. It’s their MO. Their thing. It seems ridiculous that this could be a differentiator in elite sport but maybe it’s true. Maybe they do get up earlier than the rest.

These traits were all over the Irish performance on Saturday night. That level of defence takes effort and it takes brains. When and how to tackle, how not to foul, when it is better to foul, what breakdown to engage, which one to avoid.

The team’s application was equally sharp in attack. Four tries in five visits to the Scottish 22 in that first half told us everything about the difference between these sides. Gregor Townsend and his players knew as much afterwards.

“It’s not like we came out and didn’t fire a shot,” said attack coach Peter Horne. “For the first 20 minutes we played some really good rugby. It’s just they defended like the best team in the world does.

“Credit to them, they held us out when it looked like we were going to score a couple of times. It was frustrating that they starved us of possession and we couldn’t get any field position to try to keep our foot on their throat.

“That 20 minutes before half-time they were incredible.”

Sione Tuipulotu, part of a vaunted Scottish back line that was completely shut down for the first hour, described the Ireland defence as “probably one of the best I’ve played”. To be honest, it’s a take that might just have undersold it.

Ireland delivered some wonderful strike plays but Scotland scrum-half Ali Price and lock Scott Cummings were among those to insist that their conquerors didn’t produce anything from leftfield. There were no magic potions or trick plays, just a sustained level of excellence.

The stats made for interesting reading.

Scotland racked up more metres, more runs, more carries over the gain line, more defenders beaten, more passes, and more offloads. They had 51% territory and 54% possession but then some of Ireland’s numbers didn’t impress on paper after South Africa either.

Among the more important figures both nights were those detailing the breakdown. Ireland engineered nine turnovers to the Boks’ three. The split was 7/3 against the Scots and they managed some successes against the Scottish lineout as well.

“They go hard at the breakdown, which makes that ball a little bit slower,” said Price, the scrum-half recalled to the starting XV for this and who suffered more than most because of all this Irish pressure. “It gives them more time to set.

“We had opportunities and when we run our shape effectively it can beat the best defences in the world but, credit to Ireland, they are very good at getting over the ball, winning penalties, and slowing us down and it makes it very difficult.” 

You wonder what now for the Scots who lost Stuart Hogg to retirement in the summer and brought a squad to France with 13 players already in their 30s and a few others set to join that club in the next year. And this was meant to be their golden generation.