Forget Paris: Ireland cap a remarkable five weeks with Triple Crown

Andy Farrell has overseen an impressive transition since the opening-night defeat to France.

FIVE STAR: Tommy O'Brien of Ireland celebrates with teammate Jack Crowley after scoring his side's fifth try. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

The fear five weeks ago was that Ireland would always have Paris. Come to be defined by it. Now they have this. Four wins on the bounce and a Triple Crown. And with an outside shot of a Six Nations title if England could get their act together at the Stade de France tonight.

It’s been an extraordinary swing by any standards.

Andy Farrell has used 35 players in the course of this Championship. He has spoken time and again of how all these new experiences for new or repurposed players will stand to the squad as they continue down the road to next year’s World Cup.

Hugo Keenan, Mack Hansen, Andrew Porter, Paddy McCarthy and Ryan Baird didn’t play a single second of it. Bundee Aki managed the last 15 minutes. They tore up the script at out-half midway through. And they came out smelling like roses.

The defeat of England in Twickenham three weeks ago had looked like it would be the high watermark of the spring. This was better because Scotland, unlike a crumbling England, showed up and trailed by just five points with the last quarter to play.

You would feel for Gregor Townsend and his side. They met every punch with one of their own. They gave themselves a shot of that first Triple Crown since 1990 but they lost a 12th consecutive game to an Irish team that just would not be denied.

You worry about afternoon starts. Too early. Not enough time for the fans to ‘soak’ up the atmosphere before transferring it to their seats. Hard for the players to get the juices flowing. Not here. This was primed to pop. They could have started at dawn.

It got going at 2.12pm, two minutes later than scheduled, and shortly after referee Luke Pearce let it be known that he had left his whistle in his tracksuit shorts. No problem. All that did was ratchet the spring an iota tighter. Then it sprang.

Every pass and tackle felt like it carried extra weight in a frantic first quarter. That’s what happens when this much is on the line, when two teams with so much history, and with this collection of talent, go at it with silverware at stake.

Some of the rugby was sublime, as welcome as the warmth of the spring sun.

The try that opened the scoring was crisp, sharp as a tack and ruthless in its execution with Jamie Osborne running under the crossbar. If there were doors on the posts they would have been wide open. Acres of space in a flurry of bodies.

Right off the training paddock. Joe Schmidt must have been purring somewhere.

You feared there and then for the Scots. So impressive in sending England and France home from Murrayfield tae think again, this was the start they would have feared. The sort of start that had decapitated their efforts so often against Ireland.

Tom English of the BBC had done a fine piece of research on the Friday, one of the findings being that Gregor Townsend’s side had been in front for just 65 minutes across the course of those eleven straight reversals to their Irish rivals.

Time and again they had been beaten before Ireland allowed them to land a first punch. That didn’t happen here. Within four minutes they were level after a world-class 18 phases of rugby that ended with Darcy Graham over in the corner.

Yes, that Darcy Graham. The man who said Ireland were there for the taking. The next ten minutes disproved that. Dan Sheehan splintered off a lineout maul to touch down, and then Ireland landed another beauty of a blow.

The strike play launched for that third try was a sucker punch in plain sight, Scots converging on the midfield hub of operations before Stuart McCloskey whipped a long, quick pass out wide to Robert Baloucoune.

It was raw pace wot done it.

Baloucoune took off, stalled ever so slightly to stand Graham up and then swept past him on the outside. Every bit of the Ulsterman’s size and speed was needed to get there. A try made in Ulster. A try symbolic of this ‘new’ Ireland team.

The ‘as it stands’ table made for pretty viewing by then but the rest of the half was a stalemate with Finn Russell’s fortunes symbolising the wider struggle with the Scottish No.10 making progress one minute and being harried by McCloskey or Josh van der Flier the next.

Fitting then that it was Russell who brought Scotland back to within five points midway through the third quarter when, after reams of pressure and multiple phases on two separate occasions, the playmaker hustled over and kicked the extras.

Now, then. All of a sudden we had a scoreline asking different questions. Was it really over half-an-hour since Ireland has last scored? And was that Tadhg Beirne being replaced by young Darragh Murray for a blood injury?

Yes, and yes again.

Here was everything we wanted: a game in the balance entering the last quarter, two teams bringing the best of themselves. Darragh Murray responding with a score from the next kick-off, then Rory Darge doing the same for Scotland off the next.

Were you not entertained?

If it was fast Irish starts that did for Scotland in the past it was the electric finish here. Seventeen unanswered points broke the back of a wonderful game as a contest. The ‘Fields of Athenry’ belted out. Fists were pumped, backs slapped.

The tournament will end as it started, in Paris.

Ireland have moved on.