Scotland looking to end decade-long Dublin duck against Ireland side at a low ebb

It is 10 years since Scotland last won in Dublin, when Dan Parks helped the visitors defy mere details like tackles made, yards won, possession and territory to kick Scotland to a 23-20 win at Croke Park. That victory wasn’t so much against the run of play as verging on the miraculous.

That win, however, was at a GAA ground almost as alien to the Irish rugby men as it was to the visitors. To find the Scots’ last victory at Lansdowne Road – now renamed the Aviva Stadium, and the venue for Saturday’s third-fourth place Autumn Nations Cup play-off – you have to go back to the last century. Scotland’s most recent win at Lansdowne Road was in 1998, when a team containing eight British Lions – including Alain Tait, Gregor Townsend, Craig Chalmers, Gary Armstrong, Doddie Weir and Rob Wainwright – scraped home 16-17.

Yet at no stage in the intervening 10 years have Scotland looked better equipped to win in Ballsbridge. This is arguably the best Scotland side since Gregor Townsend’s class of ’99 won the final Five Nations Championship, and it’s certainly the most consistently competitive. They proved early in Townsend’s tenure that they can score tries, and since a dire World Cup in which they were overwhelmed 27-3 by Ireland in Yokohama they have been phenomenally abstemious in defence, conceding a record low 59 points in this year’s Six Nations.

Ireland, by contrast, are at their lowest ebb for years. As with Wales, who are trying to reinvent themselves after 12 years of Warren Gatland’s rugby-by-numbers, Ireland are also trying to adapt to a post-Joe Schmidt era in which new coach Andy Farrell is trying to empower his players at a time when several key men are the wrong side of 30. As with Wayne Pivac’s Wales, after seven years of Schmidt’s control freakery, it is not going swimmingly: since the lockdown Ireland have been convincingly beaten in Paris and comprehensively outmuscled by England. Even the wins – especially a horribly laboured 23-10 home win over Georgia - have been unconvincing.

The differing approaches of Ireland and Scotland’s coaches to Saturday’s encounter tells its own story. An under-pressure Farrell has come fully-loaded for what is now a must-win game for the Ireland coach. Townsend, by contrast, blithely admitted this is not Scotland’s strongest available side and that he is experimenting in a way that he wouldn’t if this were a Six Nations game.

So, with Finn Russell and Adam Hastings injured, just weeks after qualifying on residency South African-born fly-half Jaco van der Welt makes his debut at stand-off with no specialist cover on the bench. In the centres, Duncan Taylor starts despite having barely played this year. Up front Hamish Watson, Scotland’s leading openside, is ‘rested’, with 34-year-old Blair Cowan, who hasn’t played a game under Townsend, coming onto the bench as cover.

Scotland and Ireland’s players know each other exceptionally well from the Pro14, and they also know that when their club sides are at full strength – think Leinster’s 18-15 Pro14 Grand Final win over Glasgow in 2019, or Ulster’s last-minute 22-19 Pro14 semi-final win over Edinburgh in September – there is little between them.

That pattern of one-try wins was replicated at the Aviva in February this year when Ireland won a tight match 19-12. Townsend (who was too polite to mention Stuart Hogg dropping the ball over the Irish line while going for a one-handed grounding) believes that the decisive aspect of that match was Scotland being turned over seven times in Ireland’s 22, mainly by Peter O’Mahony, which makes his decision to dispense with arch-jackaller Hamish Watson counter-intuitive. His rationale is apparently that Blade Thomson at six offers more muscle to counteract O’Mahony, a slicker offloading game and an extra threat at the lineout.

Given Scotland’s template since the World Cup, this match will be decided by whether Scotland can stop Ireland playing. England’s win a fortnight ago showed how Ireland can be physically overwhelmed, especially in midfield where Townsend hopes the hard-tackling trio of Van der Walt, Taylor and Chris Harris can negate Johnny Sexton, Bundee Aki and Robbie Henshaw. Scotland’s cutting edge will come from its speedy back three of Stuart Hogg, Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe.

The battle lines are clear. Ireland will try to play through their forwards, and using their exceptional contact work to keep it tight and try to wear down Scotland’s pack. Off a solid set-piece bolstered by the return of Rory Sutherland, the Scots will kick more than many of their fans would like, but will mix it up by muscular ball-carrying by their centres and occasionally using the pace of their back three to circumvent Ireland’s wide defence, a tactic which has regularly yielded results on the wide Aviva pitch. It would be no surprise if the result is determined by Sexton and Van der Walt’s success from the kicking tee.

As befits a team which has won 20 of the 26 matches between these two sides in the Six Nations era, with the win at Croke Park in 2010 Scotland’s only win in Dublin this century, the bookies have Ireland as overwhelming 1-5 favourites, with Scotland’s chances rated no better than 3-1, and a predicted winning margin of 8-11 points.

In what is forecast to be appalling weather, and for a Scotland side that has little to lose and everything to gain, the prospect of overturning those odds at an empty Aviva Stadium is the proverbial red rag. As skipper Stuart Hogg said on Friday: “I don't care how we win, I really don't - 6-3 will do.”

Scotland (v Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Saturday, 2.15pm): S Hogg (capt); D Graham, C Harris, D Taylor, D van der Merwe; J van der Walt, A Price; R Sutherland, F Brown, Z Fagerson, S Cummings, J Gray, B Thomson, J Ritchie, M Fagerson. Replacements:S McInally, O Kebble, WP Nel, S Skinner, B Cowan, S Hidalgo-Clyne, H Jones, S Maitland.

Ireland: J Stockdale; H Keenan, B Aki, R Henshaw, K Earls; J Sexton (capt), C Murray; C Healy, R Herring, A Porter, I Henderson, J Ryan, CJ Stander, P O’Mahony, C Doris. Replacements:R Kelleher, E O’Sullivan, J Ryan, Q Roux, J van der Flier, J Gibson-Park, R Byrne, C Farrell.