Five talking points as Scotland head to Dublin intent on ending Irish hex

Scotland head to Dublin on Saturday with their first shot at winning a Six Nations Championship since head coach Gregor Townsend steered them to the last Five Nations title in 1999.

Townsend has made three changes – two enforced – to his starting side, with a new second-row pairing of Max Williamson and Grant Gilchrist taking over from the injured Gregor Brown and Scott Cummings, and Zander Fagerson restored at tighthead prop.

Three more players – lock Alex Craig, No.8 Magnus Bradbury and wing Kyle Rowe – have come into the 23 for the first time in this campaign.

With a first Triple Crown since 1990 also on the line, Townsend sat down with the media to discuss his selection and Scotland’s prospects of a historic win. Here are five takeaways.

Scotland ‘calm’ before the Dublin storm
It might be Scotland’s biggest game, outside World Cups, for 27 years since that sun-kissed triumph over France in Paris back in 1999, but anyone hoping for a spot of tub-thumping from Townsend would have been sorely disappointed.

Head-to-Head

Last 5 Meetings

Wins

5

Draws

0

Wins

0

Average Points scored

27

11

First try wins

80%

Home team wins

60%

Despite the confidence and belief generated by a display against France the head coach felt was “close to the best that we’ve seen from this group and from probably any Scotland team”, he insisted he has not spoken to the squad about the opportunity awaiting them on Saturday.

“Not at all,” he said. “These are things you don’t need to talk about with the players because they’re very much aware of it.”

Towsend recalled his time in charge of Glasgow, when he took Warriors to their first final in the old Pro 12 in 2014. He believes an excess of emotion caught up with his side against Leinster in Dublin, as a 14-12 half-time deficit became a 34-12 defeat. A year later they returned to the final and smashed Munster 31-13 in Belfast

“In our first final we probably had too much emotion going into that game. We started on fire, but that emotional energy burnt a lot of our physical energy out by the final quarter of the game. The second year we got that opportunity, we were much calmer.

“I think this [Scotland] group are aware of what’s at stake but they’re very calm around the game right now. I’ve seen it in training. I saw it in how we reacted after the win at the weekend (against France).

“Most guys went home that night knowing there was a big week of training up ahead. We know we’ve got one more week together and it’s important that we train hard, which they have done.

“They’re enjoying playing for Scotland and enjoying playing with each other right now. It’s going to just be this one game before the team breaks up again until we get them back in the summer.”

Williamson must take it up to Max in boiler-room battle
At 6ft 6in (1.98m) and 18st 8lb (118kg), Max Williamson is one of Scotland’s most imposing physical specimens. The question is whether he can impose himself against a seriously abrasive Irish second-row unit of Joe McCarthy and Tadhg Beirne, both Test Lions.

Six Nations

P

W

L

D

PF

PA

PD

BP T

BP-7

BP

Total

1

France

4

3

1

0

16

2

Scotland

4

3

1

0

16

3

Ireland

4

3

1

0

14

4

Italy

4

2

2

0

9

5

England

4

1

3

0

6

6

Wales

4

0

4

0

1

A replacement in the first two rounds against Italy and England, Williamson was handed his first major start – only his fourth at Test level – against Wales in Cardiff in Round Three. But the 23-year-old was conspicuous by his absence and unceremoniously hauled off after just 34 minutes – along with loosehead Nathan McBeth – in a ruthless double-substitution by Townsend, who then omitted him from the 23 against France.

“Max is really tough on himself and straightaway he said he didn’t play as well as he could have and should have,” Townsend said. “But we’ve seen enough from Max in other games and we’ve seen enough in training, how he responded.

“I love players getting second opportunities. It might not have happened if Gregor (Brown) and Scott (Cummings) were fit because they’ve obviously played very well and were our starting second-rows.

“But Grant (Gilchrist) got a second opportunity in the Wales game (after being dropped following an opening defeat in Rome) and how he’s played since then just shows you that a little setback can actually make you a much better player.”

(“The positive is that Max has had that experience and knows what he needs to do. He’ll be so determined to play his best rugby now in an away game. Max was selected to start for a reason. He’d been playing really well for us off the bench, in the main. He can add a lot around our set-piece and a lot in the contact and ball-carrying.”)

Ireland ‘push the boundaries’ in the contact area
Scotland might fancy their chances of probing a potential weakness in the Irish scrum, where Tom O’Toole, who starts in the No.1 jersey, and Michael Milne, who is on the bench, are the fourth and fifth choice looseheads respectively.

But if they are going to unleash the devastating attacking game that did so spectacularly for France, the Scots are going to have to win the collisions and boss the breakdown in a way they have failed to do in 11 previous meetings with the Irish under Townsend.

Scotland have only managed one try or less in eight of those games, and only scored more than 20 points once, in a 24-27 home defeat in 2021. The cumulative score since 2018 is 287-133 to Ireland. The men in green have scored 36 tries to Scotland’s 13.

A pattern has developed over the past nine years of Ireland throttling the Scots’ ambitions on the gainline, suffocating their attacking flow and preying on their errors.

“We know the contact area is going to be massively important,” Townsend noted. “It is the most important element in a team’s success in attack. The France game was probably one of the best performances we’ve delivered in the contact area – we didn’t lose a ruck against a big jackalling team.

“We got quick ball and that pressure of that speed on the opposition brought its rewards. We’re going to be challenged more this week because Ireland have had the most jackals in the competition so far. They’ve also been penalised the most in the defensive area in the competition.

“So what that says to us is they push the boundaries in the contact area. They know how important it is for their game. I’d imagine they’ll know how important it is to stop us playing with quick ball.

“So that’s the challenge for our forward pack, to be able clear most of those contacts. They’re going to be the ones fronting up there, as well as at the maul and the scrum.”

Scottish Lions’ insight into Irish can help bust hoodoo
Only three members of Scotland’s match-day squad – Huw Jones, Finn Russell and Zander Fagerson – have a victory over Ireland on their CV.

That 27-22 win at Murrayfield in the opening match of the 2017 Six Nations came under previous head coach Vern Cotter and was a backs-against-the-wall effort achieved with only 41% possession and 37% territory, sealed by two late Greig Laidlaw penalties.

Since Townsend took over from the Kiwi that summer, Scotland have faced Ireland on 11 occasions – eight in the Six Nations, two at World Cups and once in the Autumn Nations Cup during the Covid pandemic – and lost the lot.

It is Ireland’s best ever winning run in meetings between the two Celtic cousins, and the Scots’ worst losing sequence since 11 straight defeats at the back end of the 19^th Century. One more on Saturday would make it a record dirty dozen.

Townsend said discussions around the psychology of the Irish hex over Scotland were “ongoing” within his squad, sometimes “just with the leadership group”.  But he believes the fact seven Scots, plus five more called out as replacements, toured with Andy Farrell’s British & Irish Lions last summer changes the dynamic around the fixture.

“There’s a number of our group, players mainly but also staff, that were involved in that tour with Irish coaches and Irish players,” he said.

“There’s some insight there into what they are expecting from the game, what works for them, how do we combat that, just insight into the personalities that we’re coming up against.

“It’s just kept in the players’ and the leaders’ heads, so it can give them knowledge and help during the game of what we need to lean into.

“But it is about us and how can we get our game out. If they’re stopping us in one area, how do we get to another area, so we’re driving the performance and giving us more chances of winning the game.”

Scotland will need ‘best performance of the championship’ to prevail
Ireland have only lost two of their 17 Six Nations matches at home since Farrell took charge in 2020 – both to France, in 2021 and 2025.

But Italy pushed them to the limit in Dublin in Round Two, only losing by seven points, and winless Wales were within a converted try last weekend until Jack Crowley’s clinching penalty three minutes from time, so there are signs of hope for the Scots.

A fourth Triple Crown in five years is also on the table for Ireland, although they would need a huge favour from England against France in Paris to win a third title in four years.

“It’s an opportunity for them too,” Townsend added. “We both lost our first games, and one of us is going to win four games in a row, so it would be a great way to finish the Championship for the winner.

“They’re playing at home so they’re set up pretty well to playing a team they’ve beaten for the last nine years, being at home with silverware to play for. I’d say they’d be looking forward to that situation.

“We know they have had a great run against us so it’s a massive challenge. For me, this was the toughest game of the season when we saw the draw, with their record at home, their record over us.

“They’re always in the top three in the world so it’s going to require our best performance of the championship so far to win.”