Six Nations 2025: Ireland live rent free in Scotland heads again
Published 10 February 2025
As they strive to find new ways to raise revenues at Murrayfield, Scottish Rugby could do worse than having a giant Peter O'Mahony pinata hanging from the lower reaches of the east stand.
They'd be queuing round the block to give Scotland's great bogey man some stick. A fortune could be made.
On Sunday, O'Mahony wasn't as influential or as objectionable, to Scottish eyes, as he normally is, but the mere fact that the veteran forward was there had a psychological relevance.
This was another day when Ireland lived rent free in Scottish heads - and then proceeded to wreck the joint.
Gregor Townsend has taken Scotland a long way, but the head coach is running to stand still against Ireland. Eleven games, 11 defeats, too many of them decided too early, as was the case again on Sunday.
It was the roaring predictability of it all that hit Scotland the hardest. Nothing about this latest defeat was surprising.
It took Ireland eight minutes to score at Murrayfield, the nerveless Sam Prendergast enjoying time and space and a penalty advantage to throw a long left-to-right pass to Calvin Nash, all on his lonesome.
In Scotland's grim history in this contest, it was an entirely familiar occurrence, one you could have set your watch by. Dan Sheehan, James Lowe, Robbie Henshaw, Johnny Sexton, James Ryan and Conor Murray have all scored early against Scotland in recent years.
Lowe took two minutes to strike at the World Cup in Paris in 2019. Ryan took seven minutes four years earlier in Yokohama. Henshaw took eight minutes at Murrayfield in 2021.
None of those scores came later than the 13th minute and all of them, of course, set Ireland on their way to victory.
So, when Nash touched down in the corner on Sunday, those with a half-decent memory and a fatalistic bent started to lose all hope for Townsend's team. Injuries to Finn Russell and Darcy Graham added to the darkness of the day.
This was more of the same. Not quite as awful as Yokohama or Paris, but close enough.
To be 17-0 down after 31 minutes at home was mortifying, but the reality was that it could and should have been more. Ireland were denied a pretty clear penalty try and were held up over the Scotland line twice.
They didn't just quieten the home crowd, they stunned them into silence.
Ireland went direct with menace. Not many airs, not many graces. No need. Just venomous carries from their big units and gainline, gainline, gainline.
The physical power of this Ireland team is matched by the intelligence and game awareness of its leaders. They are a coherent and efficient force, brilliantly organised. Attritional and relentless.
For 11 games in a row now, Scotland have been salmon leaping and Ireland have been the grizzlies waiting at falls-edge to gobble them up.
Townsend's team worship at the altar of width. They rely on fast ball and Hollywood moments from their wonderful attackers to break down defences, but that rarely happens against Ireland.
There is no other way for them under Townsend. It's Hollywood or bust.
Ireland get ahead and they stay ahead. That's what they do.
More than any other team that Scotland play, they have a capacity to shut the Scots down, to render their dangermen largely irrelevant amid the suffocating intensity of their game.
Consider this: under Townsend, Scotland have scored an average of 13 points in their games against South Africa with an average of 18 against Wales, 20 against France and New Zealand, 23 against England and 27 against Australia.
Against Ireland, the average is 12 as opposed to Ireland's 26. The gap on Sunday was 14, which is bang on the 11-game norm.