Ireland set to smother Scottish hopes

So we come to the game of this year’s Six Nations tournament. I doubt many people predicted that back in January.

If Scotland win they keep alive the prospect that one of three teams could win the championship in the final weekend.

If Ireland win they will probably win the championship later that day, and then all that will remain is a Grand Slam tilt seven days later with only England and Twickenham standing in their way.

For all the hoopla after the tartan heroics last week the latter eventuality seems more realistic. I do have reasons for saying this, five reasons to be exact.

1. The breakdown
It has been widely commented that one of the reasons Scotland enjoyed such a glorious day in Murrayfield two weeks ago was the breakdown, or more accurately, England’s reluctance to engage in the breakdown.

Hamish Watson (1), Ryan Wilson (2) and John Barclay (3) had a great day for specialist back-row players everywhere completing six turnovers as a unit, and as a team Scotland made nine turnovers in total.

This stat alone won them the game because it turned England’s defence from a harrying menace to a scrambling weakness. No longer could white shirted brutes charge up and sand-bag Finn Russell et al, instead they were left clambering to get on the right side of the gain-line.

Significantly this left space, lots of it, which was savagely exploited by Huw Jones.

My instincts suggested that this weekend Scotland would not have the same luck at the breakdown because of Ireland’s perceived proficiency in that area.

Then I checked the stats for successful turnovers against Ireland in the last six games; they conceded six against Wales, Italy, and France, three against Argentina, four against South Africa, and eight against Fiji. Their win loss record for these games reads WWWWWW.

It appears you can turn over Ireland as much or as little as you want and it won’t really affect the result, just ask Fiji.

What is also significant and slightly deflating if you’re a Scottish fan is that you will score tries. Ireland have conceded 12 in five games. But Ireland still possess a win-loss record full of Ws.

It appears Scotland will be able to profit from the breakdown against Ireland, how significant in terms of the final result this turns out to be is unclear though.

Advantage even.

2. Conor Murray
Murray is one of the best tactical kickers, distributors and game managers around at the moment. He engineers excellent field position and, in the search of points and tries, field position is the most coveted of all stats.

Ireland have had an average territory advantage of over 69 per cent in their last three games. From this area of dominance they have been able to win in different ways. Against France they wobbled and then conjured a drop goal in the dying minutes, against Italy they went hunting for tries, against Wales they won the game in the first 60 minutes and then panicked, almost losing it in the last 20.

Murray is one of the reasons why despite not playing to their best Ireland have a great chance of achieving the Grand Slam this year.

Scotland do not have Conor Murray. They do have Greg Laidlaw; a fantastic penalty kicker, leader and decision maker but not quite as good as Murray.

Advantage Ireland

Image: Carlos Stalgis

3. Finn Russell
This one should be interesting.

If Finn Russell thought he felt pressure against England he now has the pressure of expectation to deal with as well.

Personally, I can’t see him sustaining and surpassing the levels he reached last week. He’s going to make a mistake. One of those floated passes into the 13 channel is going to be picked off by Keith Earls or Garry Ringrose.

Why am I so certain? Because that’s professional sports. Andy Farrell will not be earning his money if he hasn’t already briefed his players about how to exploit Scotland’s urge to go wide.

I have no stats to support this just a partially completed module in sports psychology from the University of Armchair Punditry. Finn Russell will score and/or set up tries but while doing this he will push a miracle pass too far and be punished for it.

I hope I’m wrong, never nice to see mistakes but…

Advantage Ireland

4. Jonathon Sexton
The title of this bullet point should be enough explanation for why this is advantage Ireland, but after last week there is a little doubt hovering over Sexton’s consistency. Kicking stats of 56 per cent, 100 per cent and 75 per cent in his last three games suggests these doubts are justified.

However, factor in that he also kicked that amazing drop goal and only missed one place kick for the 75 per cent against France and maybe it’s a mistake to suspect the 56 per cent kicking success rate in the Wales game was anything other than an aberration.

Added to this, Sexton is playing some of the best rugby of his life at the moment; Ireland have players outside him who can finish his breaks, he can read and unlock any defence and he looks happy in what he’s doing.

Scotland have also conceded 25 penalties in three games compared to Ireland’s 13 so if Sexton does miss one kick, odds are he’s going to get another chance.

Scotland should be fearful.

Advantage Ireland

(Warwick Gastinger / CC BY 2.0)

5. The Aviva Stadium
Barring discipline both teams are remarkably well matched. Both packs are dynamic and fit. Both scrums are solid and will probably cancel each other out.

Scotland’s Stuart McInally proved against England that there is no deficiency in their line-out and Ireland boast a 93 per cent line-out success rate for the tournament. Both have match-winning fly-halfs and excellent game managers at 9.

Both have destructive runners out wide and players who are capable of magic in the middle of the park.

Added to this I can’t think of an obvious point of attack for either side; both can scrum, maul, pass, kick, catch, run, tackle, turnover, improvise, and score tries in roughly equal measure. This should result in a thrilling back and forth with both sides accruing try bonus points some way through the second half but, despite saying all this, Ireland will still win.

In the end I’m so confident because Ireland have the home field advantage.

It’s a dull statistic but it’s probably the most telling. Last year home advantage in the Six Nations resulted in a win for the home side 90 per cent* of the time (*discounting games played in Rome).

That Sexton drop goal in the first round probably won the green shirted men from the emerald isle a championship simply because the ball he kicked was Parisian.

Looking for a possible counterargument, I checked the weather forecast thinking that if it rained it might make the game closer. If the game was closer Greg Laidlaw’s boot could sneak it for Scotland, but, alas, there’s only a 21 per cent chance of rain at the time of kick off which slips to 4 per cent by the final whistle.

Advantage Ireland

Scotland are on the rise but Ireland are at the top.

Ireland by eight points with a try bonus and the championship by sunset if the rain stays away.

I hope I’m wrong because this Six Nations home-away advantage thing is going to make writing articles like this a little redundant.