Scotland will never have better chance to silence the sneering

Just four current Scottish players know what it is like to beat Ireland while only Garry Ringrose, Tadhg Furlong and Josh van der Flier have tasted defeat on the far side.

BAD RUN: 2012 was the like time Scotland won in Dublin in the Six Nations. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Ireland have had their boot on Scotland’s throat for so long now that the relationship has stepped way beyond the accepted norms of what constitutes a rivalry. Eleven wins a row, 15 in the last 16, really should have diluted the enmities and the electricity.

They clearly haven’t.

Think back over the last ten years of this thorny old relationship and it’s littered with bite and memorable moments, starting with Joe Schmidt spitting chips about a late bus to Murrayfield when the Scots last won in 2017.

“We arrived at the stadium 10 or 15 minutes late and we were late for most things in the first half,” Schmidt explained after a 27-22 loss that saw them fail to come back from a 16-point first-half deficit. “It’s particularly tough to take. We were well off our game.” Since then it’s been all gravy.

Think of Ireland’s win in Edinburgh in 2023 when injuries left Josh van der Flier throwing into the lineout. Remember Stuart Hogg dropping the ball in the try area three years earlier. And there were the two standout World Cup pool wins, in Japan and in France.

For Ireland it’s the fixture that has kept on giving. An investment that always pays off. For Scotland it has been a stone in their shoe, and all the more annoying given their frequent wins over England and the odd French scalp in that same time.

This game has been so one-sided the last decade that only four current Scottish players – Huw Jones, Finn Russell, Jonny Gray and Zander Fagerson – know what it is to beat Ireland. Only Garry Ringrose, Tadhg Furlong and Josh van der Flier have tasted defeat on the far side.

Ireland have been pure kryptonite.

It’s an odd state of affairs given there isn’t any such chasm in results when the four provinces meet Glasgow or Edinburgh in the URC. Scroll back through the last two-and-a-half seasons and it’s eleven wins ‘apiece’ in the league. Very few have been blowouts.

Scottish chances haven’t been helped this week by the injury bulletin issued on Monday which told us that their first-choice second row pairing of Gregor Brown and Scott Cummings will sit out the Triple Crown showdown in Dublin.

Gregor Townsend still has options there with the experienced pair of Grant Gilchrist and Jonny Gray, as well as Max Williamson and Alex Craig, to choose from, but the prop pair of Elliot Millar Mills and Nathan McBeth are also out having featured heavily to date.

As is Duhan van der Merwe on the wing.

What Scotland will travel with is a momentum they have never known in the 26-year history of the Six Nations after their extraordinary dance with France last Saturday that means like Ireland, they harbour Triple Crown and Championship hopes on the final day.

The Scots have won three games on the spin in the Championship only once before now. That was in 2020 when their narrow victory in Cardiff was secured seven months after the tournament had been suspended due to the Covid pandemic.

This is the moment their golden generation of players and every Scottish supporter have been waiting for so long. This is their chance to finally put to bed the sneers and the guffaws that have followed each unsuccessful attempt to turn potential into payoff.

And there are other interesting strands to pick at here.

These two will meet for a third successive time at a World Cup when they go at it in Perth in Pool D in October of 2027. That inevitably colours this latest gathering and will again when they go at it in Murrayfield a year from now.

And then there are the Lions. Eighteen Irish players featured on the tour to Australia last summer, 13 were called up from north of Hadrian’s Wall. That inevitably changes the dynamic at work here, but it’s anyone’s idea as to what the effect of it will be.

Farrell was quizzed on this very subject prior to Ireland’s win against England in Twickenham in round three given he had seen fit to make use of no less than 15 Englishmen in Australia. So, what had he learned from all that time on tour with them?

“That they’re good players. That’s why they got picked in the first place for the Lions. I suppose, mainly, you get to find out more about the person themselves and what makes them tick, the type of character that they are.

“I suppose you would expect me to say that if they are getting selected for the British and Irish Lions then they tend to be pretty impressive people, like everyone was on that tour.” 

Little enough to be gleaned from that, then.

But boil those Lions numbers down more and what we get are a dozen Irishmen playing some part in those three Tests against the Wallabies, and only four Scots. Maybe this is something Townsend can use to his advantage this week.

It would make for a flawed argument. If Sione Tuipulotu could contest the decision to drop him in favour of Bundee Aki for the second Test then few of his compatriots could mount a case with anything like the same strength of argument.

Ultimately, the place for Scotland to make their case is in Ballsbridge on Saturday afternoon.

They’ll never have a better chance.