Scotland 13 Ireland 22: match report and betting pointers

Result

Round two
Saturday, February 9: Murrayfield, Edinburgh

Scotland 13 T: Johnson; C: Laidlaw; P: Laidlaw 2
Ireland 22 T: Murray, Stockdale, Earls; C: Murray, Carbery; P Carbery

Teams

Scotand: S Hogg (Glasgow); T Seymour (Glasgow), H Jones (Glasgow), S Johnson (Glasgow), S Maitland (Saracens); F Russell (Racing 92), G Laidlaw (Clermont Auvergne, capt); A Dell (Edinburgh), S McInally (Edinburgh), S Berghan (Edinburgh), G Gilchrist (Edinburgh), J Gray (Glasgow), R Wilson (Glasgow), J Ritchie (Edinburgh), J Strauss (Sale Sharks). Replacements: F Brown (Glasgow), J Bhatti (Glasgow), D Rae (Glasgow), B Toolis (Edinburgh), R Harley (Glasgow), A Price (Glasgow), P Horne (Glasgow), B Kinghorn (Edinburgh).

Ireland: R Kearney (Leinster); K Earls (Munster), C Farrell (Munster), B Aki (Connacht), J Stockdale (Ulster); J Sexton (Leinster), C Murray (Munster); C Healy (Leinster), R Best (Ulster, capt), T Furlong (Leinster), J Ryan (Leinster), Q Roux (Connacht), P O'Mahony (Munster), S O'Brien (Leinster), J Conan (Leinster). Replacements: S Cronin (Leinster), D Kilcoyne (Munster), A Porter (Leinster), U Dillane (Connacht), J Van Der Flier (Leinster), J Cooney (Ulster), J Carbery (Munster), J Larmour (Leinster).

Pre-match odds

9-4 Scotland, 4-9 Ireland, 28-1 draw.

First half

In a pulsating opening period Ireland led through tries from Conor Murray and Jacob Stockdale, but Sam Johnson pulled one back for the Scots to leave Ireland 12-10 ahead at the break. Both teams lost key players to injury as Stuart Hogg limped off for the Scots and Ireland fly-half Johnny Sexton failed a head-injury assessment after taking a couple of big hits.

Second half

The intensity and excitement of the first half seemed to wane after the break, and Scotland were plagued by handling errors which added to the stop-start nature of the game and hindered their scoring chances.

What they said

Scotland coach Gregor Townsend
"It was just that final piece, the execution off set-piece which has been really good, that fell off the jigsaw today, and that's my fault.

"I'm the attack coach, and we weren't able to get those two or three phases either to get in behind the defence or set up our attack shape. I'm frustrated we gifted them a try through our error but very happy with how we played in the first half.

"In the second half our execution of our set-piece plays to get us into our game just didn't happen. If we were able to replicate that first half after the break, then I think we'd be here with a win."

Ireland coach Joe Schmidt
"There was definitely a rise in temperature, definitely a rise in energy, from last week. You've got to have a lot of energy when you make as many tackles as we did in the first half.

"Now we've got to make sure we kick on from here. We're relying on other people now, but the one thing we don't have to rely on other people for is how we approach things and how we perform."

Punting pointers

Scotland blamed themselves for a litany of handling errors but Ireland were far from at their best and it is hard to draw firm conclusions from either performance.

Scotland's tactic of targeting Ireland fly-half Sexton was clear to see and a couple of hits that looked late came under scrutiny but went unpunished. Teams have used the same approach before - and Sexton likes to bring the ball right up to the gain line rather than get rid early. On the plus side for Ireland, replacement Joey Carbery put in a solid performance, and Schmidt will be pleased to see his policy of bringing on fringe players is reaping benefits in the build-up to the World Cup.

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