Scotland v Ireland 6N Championship Sunday 14th march 2021

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Scotland v Ireland
6N Championship

14th March 2021
BT Murrayfield
Edinburgh
KO 15.00


Well we are getting to the business end of the championship and we have two sides who need a win.

Scotland started very brightly in their first game, ending their Twickenham hoodoo at long last, then managed to lose a game they were winning comfortably against Wales, have all the old doubts about the steel of this Scotland side, who can look very good when on song, returned?

Ireland did not have a good start to the tournament and no one will be convinced by a strong win over Italy either, which should really be a given atm They have not really found their style yet under Farrell and still perhaps seem to reliant on their old stagers and be a little reluctant to move on to the next generation.

So in effect, both sides seem a bit fragile still, which might make this a fascinating contest.

Scotland don't have a good record against Ireland in recent times and the lack of a crowd won't give much, if any advantage to the home side. On that basis you would have to fancy Ireland for a narrow victory, though I would imagine it will be close.

I think we might see a scotland team with not many changes, something along these lines, with the highlight hopefully being seeing Dobie win his first cap off the bench:

1. Sutherland
2. Turner
3. Nel
4. Cummings
5. Gray J
6. Ritchie
7. Watson
8. Fagerson M
9. Price
10. Russell
11. VDM
12. Johnson
13. Harris
14. Maitland
15. Hogg

Subs:

Keeble
Cherry
Berghan
Skinner
Haining
Dobie (a first cap off the bench)
Lang
Jones H

Thoroughly unsatisfying win for Ireland. How we can win that many Scottish line-out ball and offer no hint of counter attacking threat is beyond me.

The only exciting bit of play was Furlong sidestepping 2 Scots before throwing the one handed offload. It shouldn't be possible for a man of his shape to do that.

asoreleftshoulder wrote:Thoroughly unsatisfying win for Ireland. How we can win that many Scottish line-out ball and offer no hint of counter attacking threat is beyond me.

The only exciting bit of play was Furlong sidestepping 2 Scots before throwing the one handed offload. It shouldn't be possible for a man of his shape to do that.

That was quite something, as was the slo mo of him shown at HT trying to chase down Finn Russell, the look on his face!

BigGee wrote:

asoreleftshoulder wrote:Thoroughly unsatisfying win for Ireland. How we can win that many Scottish line-out ball and offer no hint of counter attacking threat is beyond me.

The only exciting bit of play was Furlong sidestepping 2 Scots before throwing the one handed offload. It shouldn't be possible for a man of his shape to do that.

That was quite something, as was the slo mo of him shown at HT trying to chase down Finn Russell, the look on his face!

Ha yeah he always looks absolutely wrecked, a big red farmer head on him.

Ireland's style remains one for the purists but today was a day to keep it as tight as possible. Playing loose and chucking offloads would only have played into Scotland's hands and it did feel like the game was going that way for a period in the first half as Hogg and Russell were beginning to feed off the breaking ball. This was actually a game that in my opinion would have suited Conor Murray down to the ground. Our power game works against Scotland as they don't seem to quite have the physicality to match our pack, it's against the likes of England we really need to be more creative as they have no trouble soaking up our one-out phase play.

The lineout was the difference. If Scotland line out was any way average then you'd have to think that slim win by Ireland would have not happened.


The Scots looked multiple levels above Ireland in terms of attack. I cant see us troubling England without an attack. In the second half in particular the attack was non functioning and they just resorted to box kicking.


So I don't know what to make of the result. Its good for Andy Farrell but surely this stagnation can't go on much longer. If he wants to survive he will need a different attack coach and team selections in the backs.

Well, here we are again. I suspected the wheels had come off our campaign after we fluffed our lines against Wales, out situation not helped by a month without a game.

I thought Poite was awful, he just doesn't referee the breakdown; but you simply can't win an international game without a functioning lineout and with a pack who (bar Hamish Watson) can't generate any go-forward. In truth, Ireland had to do very little to win that game and they would be rightly annoyed had we snuck even a draw.

On Russell, I really didn't think he was too bad - people will no doubt point at a couple of errors and conveniently forget that Sexton also failed to make touch off a penalty and missed his first kick - I thought the difference between the two tens were that one had a pack making meters at will and one who was going backwards.

One final point, it's truly shoite being a Scottish rugby fan for the vast majority of the time.

It looked a bit like the extra week off had dulled rather sharpened Scotland's forward play. Were they pushed too hard in training? I thought Gray had a poor game compared to his previous outings and whereas Turner had been almost faultless with his darts, his throwing and the mistiming of his jumpers allowed Ryan and co to make a real mess of our touchline possession.
If Cummings has broken a finger and Gray has injured his shoulder that will mean a new starting pair in the second row next week against Italy: the principal and GG perhaps? Ritchie faded quite badly but this game should help with match sharpness next week. Fagerson kind of reverted to being anonymous after a good couple of games. Haining put himself about when he came on, maybe deserves a start next week?
The thought of playing France without Fagerson Z, Cummings and Gray is not a prospect that I relish.

Well I thought that was an excellent game and although Ireland deserved the win Scotland did really well to get back into contention when at one point the result looked a forgone conclusion. Poite I thought was very good, I laughed out loud when he said to Sexton "Johnny don't be afraid", obviously referring to the incident in the England Wales match.

Hogg I thought was superb, again. In the past I have been critical of him but this 6N he has been an outstanding attacking 15. I think there are still questions over his defence but otherwise excellent. Russell was the player we knew he was unfortunately, some good touches but also errors. That's why I doubt him for Lions.
Henshaw, Ringrose again excellent for Ireland, Lowe very quiet. Sexton proved a few critics wrong in battle of fly halves.
Scottish line out was woeful, it was surprising given how much possession they lost they got so close. Be a good battle next week there Ireland against Itoje and Ewels(assumingly).

Hopefully Irish players tired though for next week...

We lost 6 of our 8 lineouts - that's an embarrassment! Absolute shambles. It's remarkable that we only just lost at the end given we had zero platform to work from.

I recall Townsend saying Cummings organises the attacking lineout and Gray the defensive. Turner is probably to blame for a few throws. There was one where Ireland lifted early at the front that I thought was a daft freebie for them. Scotland needed to be able to adapt to the defending team and not just implement set piece calls like robots. Frustratingly Poite prevented one attacking lineout where Turner had chucked it long. It would have been interesting to see how that would have gone.

Quickly on Poite, he got knocked about a fair bit yesterday! Gutted he managed to get his head in to see if the Ireland try was grounded because there was no way that try was going to be allowed via the TMO.

bsando wrote:Quickly on Poite, he got knocked about a fair bit yesterday! Gutted he managed to get his head in to see if the Ireland try was grounded because there was no way that try was going to be allowed via the TMO.

That one should definitely have gone to the TMO, there was a very good chance it was held up, it certainly looked that way in all the replays

Poite did actually have a decent enough game, but that was not a good call.

I didn't realise Ringrose was the one who kicked the ball that got charged down by Hogg and lead to the Russell try. He also went awol in defence for the Jones try allowing himself to be stuck behind Hogg so he couldn't mark his opposite number.

The Irish Times gave him a 5/10 rating

"13 Garry Ringrose
An uncharacteristic error strewn performance including handling mistakes, missed tackles, a blocked down kick that led to a try and the concession of a penalty. He did enjoy one or two better moments in attack. Rating: 5"

He would have been my starting Lions 13 but seeing what Jones did yesterday when he came on means there could be an exciting burst of competition for that 13 shirt over this final weekend.

BigGee wrote:

bsando wrote:Quickly on Poite, he got knocked about a fair bit yesterday! Gutted he managed to get his head in to see if the Ireland try was grounded because there was no way that try was going to be allowed via the TMO.

That one should definitely have gone to the TMO, there was a very good chance it was held up, it certainly looked that way in all the replays

Poite did actually have a decent enough game, but that was not a good call.

You think? I thought he just completely abandoned the breakdown, for both teams, more so than other refs do. On their try, he stuck his head in after the play had stopped, so there was plenty of time for Bierne to force the ball on the line illegally - the replays I could see showed it pretty clearly held up. If you are going to get the TMO involved for the Watson try, you have to for the other incident.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't think he is why we lost, but I thought he was very far from having a good game

EST wrote:

BigGee wrote:

bsando wrote:Quickly on Poite, he got knocked about a fair bit yesterday! Gutted he managed to get his head in to see if the Ireland try was grounded because there was no way that try was going to be allowed via the TMO.

That one should definitely have gone to the TMO, there was a very good chance it was held up, it certainly looked that way in all the replays

Poite did actually have a decent enough game, but that was not a good call.

You think?  I thought he just completely abandoned the breakdown, for both teams,  more so than other refs do.  On their try, he stuck his head in after the play had stopped, so there was plenty of time for Bierne to force the ball on the line illegally - the replays I could see showed it pretty clearly held up.  If you are going to get the TMO involved for the Watson try, you have to for the other incident.  

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't think he is why we lost, but I thought he was very far from having a good game

In Poites favour, he stuck his head right into the ruck and confirmed the try grounding. So how can you argue with that? I think if refs are going to do that they need to do that all the time though. Another ref may have just stood back and relied on the TMO and Ireland wouldn't have been awarded that try.

The thing that annoys me about the lineout is Ireland are known for having an excellent defensive lineout, and had brought in one of the best lineout operators in the modern era as coach who would have been pouring over our lineout to find it's weaknesses. It should have come as no surprise that we'd be targeted.

You'd like to think we put a bit of effort into it in training in preparation, so the failure looks a coaching shortcoming as much as anything.

bsando wrote:I didn't realise Ringrose was the one who kicked the ball that got charged down by Hogg and lead to the Russell try. He also went awol in defence for the Jones try allowing himself to be stuck behind Hogg so he couldn't mark his opposite number.

The Irish Times gave him a 5/10 rating

"13 Garry Ringrose
An uncharacteristic error strewn performance including handling mistakes, missed tackles, a blocked down kick that led to a try and the concession of a penalty. He did enjoy one or two better moments in attack. Rating: 5"

He would have been my starting Lions 13 but seeing what Jones did yesterday when he came on means there could be an exciting burst of competition for that 13 shirt over this final weekend.

Tuilagi is apparently on course to be fit for Sale's season run in as well. If he proves match fitness and is carrying like usual I can't see Manu being left out despite his flaws and fragility.

It's just a shame that Davies is looking a shadow of his peak self at the minute. Such a good all round 13 when fully fit and on song.

Shame about the game, one of those where we could have won and wouldn't have deserved it. We had an awful line-out, made a hash of the restarts and did not deal well with the ball in the air where we went for catches and Ireland went for slapping.

We have quite a bit to work on but we pushed Ireland to the brink with a SH on the flank for 15 minutes as we were missing a second row. We did not have a recognised 10 for 20 minutes. Our third/fourth choice front row held Kilcoyne - Kelleher - Porter to a standstill in the scrum whilst missing about 30kg behind them. Our centres generally had a good game. There was positives among the dross.

The frustration is that it feels like 8 out of 10 close matches, we find a way to lose rather than find a way to win. We keep saying that is the next phase and I have no idea how we get there as we have been stuck in this position for a while it feels.

bsando wrote:

EST wrote:

BigGee wrote:

bsando wrote:Quickly on Poite, he got knocked about a fair bit yesterday! Gutted he managed to get his head in to see if the Ireland try was grounded because there was no way that try was going to be allowed via the TMO.

That one should definitely have gone to the TMO, there was a very good chance it was held up, it certainly looked that way in all the replays

Poite did actually have a decent enough game, but that was not a good call.

You think?  I thought he just completely abandoned the breakdown, for both teams,  more so than other refs do.  On their try, he stuck his head in after the play had stopped, so there was plenty of time for Bierne to force the ball on the line illegally - the replays I could see showed it pretty clearly held up.  If you are going to get the TMO involved for the Watson try, you have to for the other incident.  

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't think he is why we lost, but I thought he was very far from having a good game

In Poites favour, he stuck his head right into the ruck and confirmed the try grounding. So how can you argue with that? I think if refs are going to do that they need to do that all the time though. Another ref may have just stood back and relied on the TMO and Ireland wouldn't have been awarded that try.

I think it's a consistency thing, I can't recall a ref doing that before and that's probably for a good reason. He only had a look after the act and he was down there for quite a while - I doubt he saw how the grounding happened, was it a result of a double movement, playing the ball on the ground etc or was it legal?  Not saying it wasn't a try, but even if he was sure I can't think of a good reason not to at least check - think Sexton could tell it was a bit touch and go given how quickly he took the conversion.

Either way, Poite definitely wasn't why we lost, I just get fed up with how he refs most teams.

There's many aspects of the game Ireland are pretty average at, but our discipline has been excellent ever since Schmidt was brought in in 2013. I'm willing to bet we have the lowest penalty count per game of any major Test nation during this period. Almost every game we win the opposition fans bemoan the ref or their own side's indiscipline, so Scotland fans please do not fret. The exception always seems to be when we play in Cardiff when all of that goes out the window

theslosty wrote:There's many aspects of the game Ireland are pretty average at, but our discipline has been excellent ever since Schmidt was brought in in 2013. I'm willing to bet we have the lowest penalty count per game of any major Test nation during this period. Almost every game we win the opposition fans bemoan the ref or their own side's indiscipline, so Scotland fans please do not fret. The exception always seems to be when we play in Cardiff when all of that goes out the window

Mr Losty. Do you like pints?

Mcsweens wrote:Mr Losty. Do you like pints?

I wouldn't be fond of drinking, but when I go at it, I go at it awful and very hard