Joe Schmidt is not a coach who is deflected by a defeat, no matter how comprehensive. Chilly gusts greeted Ireland in the Scottish capital a week after they had been blown away by England, but they were not winds of change as the champions adopted their familiar formula of establishing a lead and defending it successfully while forcing a rash of mistakes from their opponents.
Scotland had won their previous six home matches in the Six Nations in a run stretching back to the opening round in 2016. Yet after taking an early lead with a Greig Laidlaw penalty they were undone by a mixture of howlers, a typical Schmidt move from a set piece and the remorseless, relentless nature of Ireland’s possession game as a team equipped to play catch-up was caught short.
Scotland 13-22 Ireland: Six Nations 2019 – as it happened
Schmidt had spent the week fielding questions about Ireland’s gameplan which is largely risk-averse. Their former fly-half Tony Ward used the words “not pretty” rather than boring, but the essence of Schmidt’s response was that sport was not a beauty contest and that jettisoning a way of playing that had yielded 18 victories in 19 Tests before the start of the championship would have been an emotional rather than practical response.
England’s victory last weekend had been based on dominating the contact area, something Scotland, missing a host of forwards, were never likely to replicate. They relied instead on moving the ball quickly, varying the points of attack and scavenging at the breakdown. Scotland also posed questions and there was a moment in the opening half when the momentum of the game had tilted their way.
They had responded to conceding two quick tries by scoring from an interception after Finn Russell had anticipated Joey Carbery’s pass and set up Sam Johnson. Scotland had the wind at their backs and the crowd behind them: they pounded away and finished the opening half with a 25-phase move that would have resulted in a try had Huw Jones’s pass to Tommy Seymour not forced the wing to stop, allowing Jacob Stockdale to recover his position and make the tackle.
Laidlaw afterwards complained about the laissez-faire attitude of the referee Romain Poite: both sides could point to decisions that did not go their way. Scotland’s defeat was down far more to the three lineouts they blew, the mistakes they made in the build-up to Ireland’s first and third tries and the failure to take opportunities in the opening half than how the game was officiated.
Scotland were excitable, sometimes overly so as when Russell took a tap penalty five metres out and the ball was knocked on, while Ireland were temperate, never getting carried away in the moment.
Their first try followed their first period of pressure. Seymour had knocked on the restart after Laidlaw’s penalty and when Stockdale kicked into the home 22, Seymour did well to field the ball but then threw a pass to Sean Maitland with too much force. Conor Murray had only to pick up to score.
Ireland’s third, when they were leading 12-10, came from another loose ball. When Carbery picked up on halfway, nothing was on, but the fly-half somehow wriggled away from Allan Dell and Rob Harley and into space, timing his pass to Keith Earls as tacklers closed in on him for the wing to deliver the coup de grace.
There is a reason Ireland are second in the world rankings and Scotland seventh and if the greater ambition of Scotland’s approach makes mistakes more likely, they need to nail crucial moments and here they did not, the architects of their own downfall.
Ireland, ahead on the scoreboard, did no more than they had to. So important was victory after the defeat to England that they did not chase the try bonus point at the end, focused on keeping Scotland at arm’s length. Their second try was typical Schmidt and owed much to the bravery of Jonathan Sexton, who lasted 23 minutes before leaving the field with an injured ankle and failing a head injury assessment.
Sexton had been the target of vigorous tackles from the off, some close to being late, but he never flinched. Ryan Wilson thundered into him early on, and then again. So did Dell, Jonny Gray and Josh Strauss but the Lions fly-half continued to stand flat and take the hits. His reward came after a lineout on halfway: when Sexton received the ball, Dell lined him up and so intent was the prop on wiping out the No 10 that he did not notice Stockdale had come into the midfield off his wing.
Dell duly dumped Sexton on the floor, but not before a subtle inside pass to Stockdale had been delivered. He ran into the space Dell had vacated and away from the hooker Stuart McInally to make the 50 metres to the line.
Sexton went off a few minutes later, following the Scotland full-back Stuart Hogg who suffered a shoulder injury after kicking the ball ahead and colliding with Rory Best.
Scotland missed Hogg, especially either side of the interval when the outcome was in the balance. Desperation crept into their play and the quality of the match deteriorated as players tired.
The home crowd had hope when Laidlaw’s second penalty on the hour reduced Ireland’s lead to six points, but it was snuffed out by the boot of Carbery six minutes later. On the windiest of days in Edinburgh, Scotland, who now face a difficult trip to Paris in a fortnight’s time, ran out of puff.