So, do Scotland have a chance?

It didn’t take Gregor Townsend long after last Saturday’s win over Italy to set the tone for today’s game. About half an hour, in fact, before Scotland’s head coach declared his team would need “one of our best-ever performances” to beat Ireland. And that they would have to improve probably every aspect of their game to do so.

Townsend was speaking before England’s win in Dublin, but you can bet his words would have been identical if spoken afterwards. For some time now he has seen the Irish as an ideal model for his team to emulate, and after last year’s defeat at the Aviva he insisted they were three or four years ahead of Scotland in terms of their achievement.