Scotland won on stats, but Ireland played smarter

Ireland have always made a merit of working harder and thinking smarter than everyone else

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.