Ireland’s Dogged Display Sees Off Scottish Challenge

Wingers Jacob Stockdale and Keith Earls weighed in with a try apiece as Ireland returned to winning ways by battling past Scotland on a 22-13 scoreline at BT Murrayfield.

Scotland v Ireland – As It Happened

Conor Murray’s opportunist ninth-minute try set Joe Schmidt’s men on the way towards their first Guinness Six Nations points of the campaign, but it took them upwards of an hour to develop a match-winning buffer. Unbeaten at home in the Championship since February 2016, the resilient Scots were only 12-10 behind after Sam Johnson’s try from a Finn Russell interception.

Recovering from throwing that intercept pass, Joey Carbery went on to play a key role in garnering only Ireland’s second victory in their last five trips to Edinburgh. A first half entrant in place of Jonathan Sexton (HIA), the young out-half made the break and passed wide for Earls’ 55th-minute score before cancelling out a Greig Laidlaw three-pointer with the clinching penalty, 12 minutes from time.

Peter O’Mahony stood out in a man-of-the-match performance with returning duo Sean O’Brien and Rob Kearney almost making their presence felt, the full-back making 88 metres, three breaks and beating five defenders. Despite the swirling wind and rain, Ireland’s lineout was a particular area of strength and James Ryan and replacement Ultan Dillane both stole Scottish throws.

Four hard-earned points gives Ireland a foothold in the 2019 Championship, which resumes for them in two weeks’ time with a trip to Rome to face Italy. Giving his reaction afterwards, head coach Schmidt said: “We just muscled our way through it, to be honest. It wasn’t the prettiest game, we got a peach of a set-play try and we got a couple of broken-field running tries.

“We restricted them to an intercept try so from that perspective (it’s positive). In that first half, we were in our 22 for 34% of the time and in our half for about 72% of the time so that was a massive defensive effort and even the intercept was on our advantage so we went to sleep a little bit there and we’ve got to be better than that.”

Captain Rory Best, who received the Centenary Quaich after the final whistle, added: “We have a lot of belief in what we’re doing and how good a team we are. That was a really tough game and it was also tough mentally in the build-up to it, but we asked for a physical reaction that we probably didn’t get last week (against England) and by and large we got that.

“It maybe wasn’t the most spectacular game of rugby that was ever played but it was two teams that went hard at each other. We had to wear them down, they’re well-organised in defence and we knew they would be dangerous in attack. We had a couple of chances and we took them and we were quite clinical when we had the ball.”

Scotland set out their stall with a typically high-tempo start, Josh Strauss bouncing off Bundee Aki’s attempted tackle and Huw Jones’ clever kick giving them early territory. Ireland were sharp in defence to hold out from a penalty kicked to the left corner but Aki’s hands in the ruck, close to the posts, allowed Scottish captain Laidlaw to kick his side ahead in the sixth minute.

Jones’ fumbling of Sexton’s brilliantly-placed restart gave Ireland the platform of a scrum, and although Scotland gave away little ground in the next few phases, they gifted a try to Murray when failing to deal with Stockdale’s chip-and-chase on the left. Under pressure from Chris Farrell, Tommy Seymour’s ill-advised pass went off Sean Maitland’s fingertips and the ball sat up for the onrushing Limerick man to dive over to the left of the posts.

After receiving some treatment for a knock, Sexton pulled the conversion wide on the near side but it was his interception in midfield which launched Ireland forward soon after. Farrell, who was making his second Six Nations start, kicked through to heap pressure on Seymour, and Scotland then lost their talismanic full-back Stuart Hogg to a shoulder injury, his last act being a kick to touch from which Ireland created a classy 16th-minute try.

Lineout possession was worked infield and O’Mahony and Sexton deftly combined in a move straight off the training ground to send Stockdale darting through the defensive line and clear of the chasing Russell for a 50-metre run-in to the posts. With Sexton recovering from a thumping tackle by Allan Dell, Murray converted the Ulster winger’s 13th try in 16 Tests to open up a 12-3 lead.

Hogg’s replacement Blair Kinghorn had the desired impact, running hard to set up a close-in penalty but Ireland were alive to the quick tap and O’Mahony was able to force a knock-on. Kinghorn was also involved in a threatening counter attack that saw Stockdale prevent Seymour from turning a Russell grubber kick into a try. TMO Rowan Kitt highlighted a forward pass in the build-up and Ireland were relieved to stay nine points in front.

Although starved of territory in the second quarter, Ireland exploited some space when the newly-introduced Carbery cut back to the left wing where O’Brien linked with O’Mahony whose intelligent kick brought play back into the Scottish 22. However, they were stung by Russell’s interception and despite Earls reeling him in short of the whitewash, the number 10 expertly popped the ball off the deck for incoming centre Johnson to gather and touch down.

The right-sided conversion was expertly curled over by Laidlaw, reducing the deficit to just two points on the half hour mark, and with the kicking battle going their way, Scotland ended the first half with a prolonged attacking spell. Earls and Best had to concede a five-metre lineout and scrum respectively, the latter after a Ryan lineout steal had bounced off the corner flag.

However, an immense display of disciplined defence ensured Ireland kept the Scots out through 25 phases that lasted three-and-a-half minutes. There were important tackles from Earls, Aki, Cian Healy and the back row, in particular, and a pass that was slightly behind Seymour allowed Stockdale enough time to deny the former Ulster player a try in the right corner.

The second half was a much scrappier affair with a higher error count for both sides. Ireland were first to threaten, Carbery using a penalty advantage to send Kearney scampering up the left wing but his pass failed to find Farrell on his inside, while Stockdale lurked menacingly on the outside. A Stuart McInally tackle on Earls and Jamie Ritchie’s efforts at the breakdown won the Scots a clearing penalty.

The momentum continued to swing one way and then the other, with Ireland winning a scrum penalty, following another Kearney run which saw him beat Johnson and Rob Harley, and then McInally stripping the ball away from Tadhg Furlong. Kearney again made ground over halfway before Ireland broke through thanks to Carbery’s evasion skills, pace and a stellar pass.

The Munster out-half slipped free out of a couple of tackles from Dell and Hartley, darted into open space and then looped a pass out for Earls to raid in from the right wing for his 28th try for Ireland. The 29-metre conversion was successfully negotiated by Carbery, extending the lead to 19-10 as the home crowd grew increasingly frustrated.

Some tight refereeing calls went against their side who were also guilty of some costly knock-ons and forward passes. Nonetheless, flanker Ritchie’s hard work at the breakdown led to a turnover and Laidlaw coolly swept over his second penalty goal of the game to punish a ruck infringement from the otherwise defensively-solid Aki.

Scotland were hoping to push for a match-winning converted try at that stage, but Ireland built enough pressure through the ball-carrying grunt of replacement Dave Kilcoyne and others to force a telling error. Josh Strauss was whistled up for not rolling away and Carbery neatly added the three points to put the visitors out of reach.

Connacht lock Dillane was probably the pick of the bench players in the closing stages, nailing his lineout duties and then getting in first at a ruck where Ritchie coughed up a penalty. A late scrum on halfway could have been the launchpad for a cut at a bonus point try, but Scotland disrupted and then scuppered their own attack with a final knock-on.