Farrell 'proud as punch' after Ireland land big blows to kill off Scots and seal Triple Crown

Head coach and captain were content to sit back and see how the finale of Super Saturday would leave the Six Nations table knowing that Ireland had done their bit

Sat, 14 Mar, 2026 - 18:51

Simon Lewis

Caelan Doris said he would enjoy his evening regardless of the destination of the Guinness Six Nations title, proud of Ireland’s performance to win a Triple Crown with an impressive 43-21 victory over Scotland on Saturday.

The Ireland captain and No.8 picked up the player of the match award for his part in a pulsating shootout for the Triple Crown, with Scotland also gunning for the honour and their own shot at the championship outright. The victors went to the top of the table on the final day of the 2026 campaign but know France will successfully defend their title with a victory over England later on Saturday night.

That will not matter to Doris, who lifted the Triple Crown in front of a full house at Aviva Stadium immediately following his team’s outstanding performance.

“Yeah, it's still pleasing,” Doris said. “It's not a commonly done thing. So we'll still enjoy it.

“The growth throughout (the campaign) that we've seen, it's a pretty satisfying way to finish up versus if you look at last year, we obviously won four out of five last year as well, but I think our performance probably dipped towards the end.

“So to finish with that performance is definitely pleasing. We've done our part. We've controlled what we can control. So we'll enjoy the evening regardless."

Head coach Andy Farrell was equally satisfied, not just with his team’s six-try victory over the Scots, which extends a winning run over Gregor Townsend’s side to 12-consecutive matches, but also with a campaign that has improved steadily since a heavy opening-round loss to the French in Paris.

Ireland’s four wins since have been achieved without a number of frontline players due to injury while 35 players have been used, including Test debuts for Edwin Edogbo and Nathan Doak and a raft of Six Nations debuts, including 24-year-old lock Darragh Murray, who came off the bench against Scotland as a blood replacement for Tadhg Beirne and scored a maiden try on Saturday to secure a try bonus point.

Player ratings: how Ireland fared in superb win over Scotland

Full-back Jamie Osborne, deputising for the injured Hugo Keenan throughout the championship, hooker Dan Sheehan, and wing Rob Baloucoune, playing in his first Six Nations this season, had preceded Murray’s try to give Ireland a 19-7 half-time lead, two of them converted by Jack Crowley. Murray’s score after the break came between two Scotland tries from Finn Russell and Rory Darge to add to Darcy Graham’s sixth-minute try but a Crowley penalty and two further conversions of a Tommy O’Brien double sealed the victory.

“Proud as punch of everyone involved,” head coach Farrell said. “It's been a hell of an eight weeks and winning matters, but what's happened over that eight weeks matters more to us in a sense that there's a lot of firsts with the first caps, first Six Nations, first taking it to the final week when it matters for quite a few people in our group.

“How the group have come together and navigated their way through that has been pretty special, so therefore we grow massively because of it and the group has become more resilient because of that.”

Farrell credited Scotland’s performance for pushing Ireland for as long as they did as they chased a first trophy since their 1999 Five Nations title and a first Triple Crown since 1990 with a win that would end their 11-match losing streak to the Irish.

“That's why it was so pleasing, they played bloody well, you know?” the Ireland boss said. “They did, they kept banging the door down, the whole time, but I thought we had a ruthless edge to us in how we defended and converted in the 22, I suppose that was the story of the game really.”

Farrell returned to his theme of an inexperienced Ireland squad that has grown incrementally across its five games, with the 42-21 win at Twickenham over England another high point in round three. For the head coach, the successful conversion of Tom O’Toole from loosehead to tighthead prop, the debut championship campaigns for the likes of another loosehead Michael Milne, wings Baloucoune and O’Brien and the emergence of Stuart McCloskey as a first-choice inside centre have been just as important milestones.

“You look at the lads who took the field today and it was their first tournaments. I mean somebody like Darragh Murray to come in, played his first caps in the summer, but to come in and score the try and charge down (a kick), his lineout was great, all of that.

“Mikey Milne, to perform like he did and come on, you could go through it like that and talk about everyone, but for me there's a couple of standout stories as well.

“The Tom O'Toole thing is amazing. It's amazing what he's done, he should be unbelievably proud of himself because it's a tough thing to do, but how he's handled it, and you saw the scrum today, how he stood up is a fantastic story.

“And then obviously Stu McCloskey. He should definitely be in the running for player of the tournament. But for him to back it up five games on the trot is new, certainly in this format, but to perform and be consistently performing to that higher level is amazing, and it's all because he's playing in a squad that's unbelievably close and connected to one another.

“I thought Caelan had one of his best games that he's played in his career, never mind over the last, barring the penalty that he give away.” The final point was in jest against his captain, sitting by his side during Ireland’s post-match media conference, but Farrell added: “We could talk here all night about the group and what this last eight weeks has meant to us, but unbelievably proud is the word.”