6N 2019: Scotland v Ireland, 9 February

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SCOTLAND v IRELAND 
9 February 2019
KO: 14:15
BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh

Referee: Romain Poite (France)
Touch judges: Pascal Gaüzère (France) and Alexandre Ruiz (France)
Television match official: Rowan Kitt (England)

Live on [paddy TV and jock TV]

A. Head to Head

134 Played 134
67 Won 62
6 Drawn 6
62 Lost 67
1,415 Points 1,525

B. Recent Form

10 March 2018
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
28–8 to Ireland

4 February 2017
Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
27–22 to Scotland

19 March 2016
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
35 – 25 to Ireland

15 August 2015
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
28 – 22 to Ireland

21 March 2015
BT Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
10 – 40 to Ireland

2 February 2014
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
28 – 6 to Ireland

24 February 2013
Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
12 – 8 to Scotland

10 March 2012
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
32 – 14 to Ireland

6 August 2011
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
10 – 6 to Scotland

27 February 2011
Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
18 – 21 to Ireland

20 March 2010
Croke Park, Dublin
20 – 23 to Scotland

C. Teams

SCOTLAND


[TBC]

IRELAND 


[TBC]

I think not having Stander just changes the tactics slightly. They are both very good players and both carry very well but maybe not quite as direct. They are both playing for their squad places in the WC and will be up for the challenge.

Joe might go left field and put Jordi Murphy in at 8 and sob at 7.

Despite Saturday's results I think Ireland must be favourites for this match. They are way, way too good for us. Much, much better. we have no chance. None at all.

I think Our front five picks itself, if everyone is fit;
Dell-Rambo-Nel Bhatti-Brown-Berghan (although his needless yellow card might see him on the naughty step

Ickle Jonny- Lazarus/Toolis

Really it's the back row where changes may be made.

Personally Ritchie-Batman-Bluto and I'm not even concerned about who wears which number.


Toonie may go with Batman-Bluto-Hardie with Ritchie benching.


The Tombola may give us Toolis-Bluto-Batman. It's as likely as anything in Toonieland.

9-15 should be fairly straightforward,


Frodo

Dancer

Smiling Sam

Huw Jones

Seymour-Hogg-King Blarehorn

As I say we have no chance anyway.

Ireland will not want to lose on Saturday. 2 games on the bounce, not will not sit well with the Irish. 
 However  Scotland at home, Ireland might have to have a change of plan from last Saturday against England.

Is SOB not one of the walking wounded too? 

The poor fecker is only just back from breaking an arm.

Ireland will not want to lose on Saturday. 2 games on the bounce, not will not sit well with the Irish. 
 However  Scotland at home, Ireland might have to have a change of plan from last Saturday against England.

majesticimperialman wrote:Ireland will not want to lose on Saturday. 2 games on the bounce, not will not sit well with the Irish. 
 However  Scotland at home, Ireland might have to have a change of plan from last Saturday against England.

Does the pope sh*t in the woods? Obviously Ireland will want to avoid defeat, as will Scotland. The motivation for both teams will be similar, for Scotland a win here will capture the nation's attention. Beat Ireland and Scotland will be travelling to Paris to play the hapless French, lose to Ireland and Scotland will be travelling to France where they've not won for 20 years. In many ways the last 20 minutes in the games may well suit Scotland. Ireland are now a team with a point to prove in the eyes of the media whereas Scotland's bizarre semi-paralysis has left people at best muddled at to what to take from the game. Everyone is focused on Ireland and no one is too overconfident about Scotland. In all honesty I think last weekend will have little bearing on this match; the Irish players are too good and too experienced to need that kick up the bohookie to perform at Murrayfield. And Italy at home is tantamount to a pre-tournament friendly and that stood out last weekend. A lot of articles have written Scotland off, but I think Finn Russell will decide this game one way or another.

I’m worried. Ireland haven’t gotten bad overnight and I fear that losing at home to the big white ones will have seriously focused the mind and we could be looking at facing an Ireland team with a point to prove.

Still. I could be wrong.

Undoubtedly they will be motivated but my point remains, every time an international team takes to the field against one of their oldest rival they should not want for motivation. Regardless of the England result the Ireland team were going to be bloody difficult to beat. They will come firing out of the blocks but Scotland have had all week to prepare for that and will expect it. They will need to prepare for that, make sure they hold the ball early on and frustrate the Irish. Scotland's kicking will have to be accurate. And a few big tackles to get the crowd going. A team with a point to prove can go in one of two directions; if they get frustrated they are more likely to become ill-disciplined. The sad fact is that if Ireland turn up and play to their full potential then Scotland's best ever performance may not be enough to turn them over. But just because they have a point to prove does not mean they are unstoppable.

Sounds like Nel is out, a torn calf muscle. That is not what we needed, he has been on great form this year.

It looks as if it is down to Berghan then to reproduce his form of last season, which has not been quite as evident this year. It is still a couple of weeks to soon for Zander, but we will hopefully get him back for the French game.

Berghan to start and Rae/Mccallam on the bench for this one it seems.

Nel is an enormous loss, Berghan is gonna need to have a big game in the scrum. Last thing we need is for our scrum to become a guaranteed penalty. Fingers crossed Fraser Brown is back in the squad, it'd be worrying if we had a hooker on his second cap and a tighthead on his fourth come the end of the game. It'll be hard to control/ get back into a game if we're being bossed at the set piece.

Not worried about Berghan stepping in, he’s been playing well this season but it is a shame to lose Nel.

More interested in whether Gray gets reinstated or if he’ll stick with the Edinburgh pair.

Don’t think playing Brown would be sensible considering his injury track record.

I’d have Hardie on the bench ahead of Graham. Maitland too if he’s fit.

BigGee wrote:Sounds like Nel is out, a torn calf muscle. That is not what we needed, he has been on great form this year.

It looks as if it is down to Berghan then to reproduce his form of last season, which has not been quite as evident this year. It is still a couple of weeks to soon for Zander, but we will hopefully get him back for the French game.

Berghan to start and Rae/Mccallam on the bench for this one it seems.

Nooooooooooooooooo. Where did you read about Nel?

It was in the offside line, usually those articles are in the papers by the morning

Ahh what a nightmare - Berghan shoring up the scrum doesn't fill me with huge confidence against that Irish FR.

I would probably go with Rae on the bench - assuming he is in the squad? He has shown he can scrummage at a good level and has more game time that McCallum.

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/rugby-union/scotland/wp-nel-a-big-doubt-for-ireland-tie-as-scots-sweat-over-calf-injury-1-4867807

Big hairy Baws.

It's good we didn't already have an injury crisis before this....

Berghan, had a great season last year, and if it was last year, he likely would have come into the 6n as starting TH. However Nel's form this season has largely kept Si to a bench place. He's not done much wrong, he's just not had as much gametime. I don't have any concerns about him coming in, but our bench has just got substantially weaker.

You would imagine that Darcy Rae will come in for the bench spot. Another newbie at this level, though he has had a decent season with Glasgow so far and has held up the scrum well, particularly in the early part of the season when we were struggling for props ourselves. I guess we will find out what he is all about now.

Aye, I think had McCallum continued with the amount of games he was playing last year, he might have challenged for the bench, however given McCallum has barely played, and Rae is doing fairly well, then Rae it'll be.

The only thing that might impact that, is if Toonie believes McCallum can cover both sides, and wants to test that theory. Not that a 6 nations match against Ireland should be the place to test that, but Toonie does what Toonie does. Also I don't think McCallum is really that capable of playing both, he did initially as he had to, but he's primarily a TH these days

I’m not suggesting this should happen, I just wonder if we might see it;

With Brown back in training and likely to be involved in some capacity and with Skinner now out, what are the chances of Brown coming into the BR to replace Skinner?

I know it’s not ideal, and we have other options in the various combinations of BR players that we have discussed previously, but we’ve seen Toonie getting Brown into the team via the BR and he’s done well playing there for Scotland before.  With BR being a bit problematic currently, Brown would bring more bulk than some other options and is pretty good at winning the ball and turnovers.

Chances are it won’t happen, but there are worse options.

Taking aside the mentalness of the idea,  I'd be wary of wary of throwing  Brown in from the start given he's not played in a while. He'll probably managed 15 minutes fine but itsi big ask for him to do most or all of a game.

Hmm, I think that would really be a long shot.

Yes Brown has played back row, but only I think on tour when we were struggling for players. He has only just got back to fitness and hard to see him being up to it at this point in time.

I think our need for some experienced back up at hooker outweighs our struggles in the back row significantly as well. Hardie and Graham are far more seasoned operators than Kerr is, despite all of his promise and potential.

nahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

When brown was playing inthe backrow it was because he was on the bench and all our backrow got gubbed so thankfully our starting hooker (McNally) stayed at 2 and Brown came off the bench to cover the backrow.

It was a break glass in case of emergency situation and shouldnt be deployed as a standard subsitution tactic.

We're also fine with plenty 6s but it's No 8 we are stuggling with and Brown sadly isnt the answer to that problem.

Also we're kinda stuggling for hookers at the mo so no point wasting a perfectly good one as a plaster for backrow.

Edit - Actually I think Brown was the starting hooker and the backrow got gubbed so Turner came on at 2 and Brown went to the backrow (horses for courses)

RDW wrote:Taking aside the mentalness of the idea,  I'd be wary of wary of throwing  Brown in from the start given he's not played in a while. He'll probably managed 15 minutes fine but itsi big ask for him to do most or all of a game.

Not that i'm advocating the idea - but it's not quite as mental as you may think - Brown played backrow when he was coming back from injury after Edinburgh released him, I can also remember him playing well there for Glasgow in some big games (although I can't remember the specific matches).

For me its:

Wislon
Ritchie
Strauss

With a toss up between Hardie/Graham on the bench. I have been critical of Strauss before, but I thought he played well against the Italians - his problem has always been backing it up against better opposition, but I think he showed some good form.

Aye, don't get me wrong I'm not necessarily advocating the suggestion, but we all know how Toonie likes a surprise or two.

EWT Spoons wrote:Aye, don't get me wrong I'm not necessarily advocating the suggestion, but we all know how Toonie likes a surprise or two.

Nel (wonky hamstring and all) starting at 9

Ryan Wilson starting..............

tigertattie wrote:

EWT Spoons wrote:Aye, don't get me wrong I'm not necessarily advocating the suggestion, but we all know how Toonie likes a surprise or two.

Nel (wonky hamstring and all) starting at 9

Ryan Wilson starting..............

At 12...

Surely Wilson has the temperament for scrum half?  Nel to 12, McInally to full back.

do we have any scrum halves amoung us?

One of my pet hates was our scrum half starting a fight with the opposition then hiding behind me. Wee coward!!!

tigertattie wrote:do we have any scrum halves amoung us?

One of my pet hates was our scrum half starting a fight with the opposition then hiding behind me. Wee coward!!!

The master of that was Cusitor.  goad an opposing forward then run and hide behind big Jim

Ireland confirming that Toner and Ringrose will also have to sit this one out. Earls should be fit though.

Nothing wrong with Ringrose, Joe has had a quiet word for him to sit this out so he doesn't upset Robbie Henshaw... makes selection a bit more straightforward -

15 Kearney
14 Earls
13 Henshaw
12 Aki
11 Stockdale
10 Sexton
9 Murray
8 O'Brien
7 VDF
6 O'Mahoney
5 Ryan
4 Roux
3 Furlong
2 Best
1 Healy

Kilcoyne, Cronin, Porter, Dillane, Murphy, Cooney, Carbury, Larmour/Addison

Does Schmidt put Henshaw back in at 15 again? And put the two Farrells in midfield - what could go wrong?

Where does Ruddock feature in the international pecking order Rodders, he always looks brilliant any time I see him play - yet he doesn't seem to be in anybodies 23?

EST wrote:
Where does Ruddock feature in the international pecking order Rodders, he always looks brilliant any time I see him play - yet he doesn't seem to be in anybodies 23?

Well you'd need to ask Joe but...  I think realistically he needs a few injuries to get a look in.

Obviously O'Mahoney is nailed on at 6 and Joe seems to prefer the likes of O'Brien, Leavy or Murphy on the bench.

Agree though he's a very good player and in probably the best form of his career.

Hopefully the Munster lads show up this week. O'Mahony in particular. I think you nearly need Munster not to qualify for the KO stages of the champions cup for them to play well for Ireland.

I'd prefer we trust an actual specialist 8 in Conan to replace CJ rather than SOB although the latter impressed me in the closing stages vs England. I like the idea of bringing SOB on after 60 minutes too much.

And let's give Henshaw another go at 15 - he wasn't all bad. Ringrose is a loss and he was our best player vs England but Farrell, Farrell and Addison are all capable at 13.

rodders wrote:Sorry EST, looks like I edited your post instead of quoting you!

Couldn't figure out what happened there. Playing God now that you are a mod.

Oh gee let me sort this mess before they sack me!

OK I think thread makes some sense now?

It's been fun while it lasted rodders! 

Don't worry - on my first day as Founder I almost led to the forum being erased from the internet so yours is pretty small scale by comparison!

Ha - am I Irish now? Whats going on? Kieth Earls should be starting at 13! BOD Is the greatest player ever!

Well I feel better now... sorry folks, as you were...

I heard Conor Murray has the same disease that Jeremy Beadle had and he will eventually end up with one withered arm shorter than the other. Apparently that explains why his passing was so shoite v England.

rodders wrote:

EST wrote:
Where does Ruddock feature in the international pecking order Rodders, he always looks brilliant any time I see him play - yet he doesn't seem to be in anybodies 23?

Well you'd need to ask Joe but...  I think realistically he needs a few injuries to get a look in.

Obviously O'Mahoney is nailed on at 6 and Joe seems to prefer the likes of O'Brien, Leavy or Murphy on the bench.

Agree though he's a very good player and in probably the best form of his career.

I would like to see a backrow of
6 Ruddock
7 Murphy
8 Conan

Very interesting game this one. Scotland are becoming the side who look to run it most of the four home unions and that should play into Irelands hands who eat that stuff for breakfast. Concerning for me was how easily Italy scored multiple times in the last 15. To be able to compete with the stronger sides they needed to finish with a ruthless efficiency. Now they face a resurgent Ireland which wont help them at all, especially if they think hogg is going to get the sort of ride he did last weekend. Irelands usual gameplan should be enough, but even they should be looking beyond the predictable and looking at getting players into space more.

Josh Strauss doing the presser for the SRU today, that is usually a good sign that he will be playing!

I think we’re going to do okay this weekend. Of course it’s still early in the week and the horror hasn’t set in yet. By Thursday I’ll be anxious and by Saturday morning I’ll be a shivering wreck. But that’s future Eejits problem.

For now, Scotland by 5.

It's best to save all anxiety until the teamsheet comes out with Townsend. If you think about it too much in the meantime you end up believing that Gordon Reid might end up at Scrum-half.

Eejit wrote:I think we’re going to do okay this weekend. Of course it’s still early in the week and the horror hasn’t set in yet. By Thursday I’ll be anxious and by Saturday morning I’ll be a shivering wreck. But that’s future Eejits problem.

For now, Scotland by 5.

Shame to see journos still dragging up 'busgate' from 2 years ago - credit to the Ireland players though they aren't biting.

I didn't realise it was only 15 minutes late - I know any disruption isn't ideal but if 15 minutes is the difference between a standard warmup and a mad rush then Ireland need to look at their planning! 

I bet they turn up 30 minutes early this time