Ireland Come From Behind To Beat Scotland

The Boys In Green Claim Their Third Triple Crown In Four Years

By Denis O'Brien

A kicking game at Murrayfield saw Ireland pull back a 5-point deficit with less than a quarter remaining as Ronan O'Gara's penalty kicking ground out the victory and the Triple Crown title.

It wasn't supposed to be as close as the 19-18 scoreline, the script was supposed to be an easy win for the Irish at Murrayfield but the Scots had other ideas coming off an embarrassing loss to those upstarts from Italy last time. Ireland had just the one change from their recent historic win over England at Croker with Simon best coming in for the injured Marcus Horan.

A big Irish following saw Ireland press in the early going as they were full of running and forced a penalty which O'Gara put over after just six minutes. Gordon Darcy made a good break through the middle soon after as did Shane Horgan minutes later but the Scots were defending well. A set back for Ireland ensued when full back Girvan Dempsey dropped the ball with a try looking a possibility before Chris Patterson equalized with a penalty for Scotland.

That over indulged pastime - The Garryowen - was poorly employed by Dempsey and Scotland easily gathered and counter attacked with Patterson heading for the line before Denis Hickie made a brilliant tackle to avert danger.

Ten minutes from the break Ireland continued to assert and a Ronan O'Gara block down on a Dan Parks attempted kick, left O'Gara through the Scot back line. O'Gara moving forward, interchanged passes nicely with Darcy and Simon Easterby before O'Gara touched down under the posts for the only try of the day.

The Scots came back well though with pressure of their own and forced a pair of easy penalties for Patterson. O'Gara had a penalty in-between to leave Ireland ahead by 13-9 at the interval. For all their line out and maul possession Ireland should have been further ahead and their backs didn't seem to be as flowing or as creative as against England.

Scotland after 10 minutes of the restart had Nathan Hines sin-binned until the 55th minute but Ireland couldn't capitalize on the extra man. In fact, it was Scotland who managed to score in that period when Patterson kicked a penalty to narrow the gap to just the one point.

Hickie went close in the corner, after a great O'Driscoll break, but the try was not awarded. But the Scots were battling and in no mood to capitulate and held their own in the possession stakes and by the 60th minute Ireland looked a little ragged in front of a resurgent Scottish contingent who saw their team take the lead with another penalty minutes later. Ireland found themselves behind by two points and a fired-up Scotland made it a five-point margin with another Patterson conversion.

With 14 left on the clock Ireland's Triple Crown hopes didn't look good but to their credit they didn't panic and picked their game up immediately with further pressure which resulted in two penalties in the space of a minute which O'Gara dispatched with aplomb to sneak ahead again by the single point. The Scots in the last three minutes were desperate to get a score but Ireland held firm to hold on for their third Triple Crown victory in four years.

It wasn't a world beating performance by any means and the forwards worked more efficiently than did the backs who seemed to run out of ideas with ball in hand when passing across the line. O'Gara, despite being flawless again with penalty conversions, missed the side-line on a few occasions and he will have to address this for the future

England's surprise win over France now gives Ireland an outside chance of winning the Six Nations championship but they first have to beat dark horses Italy, who deservedly took the scalp of Wales in Rome, and this task might be harder than it seems minus the injured, Paul O'Connell. Meanwhile, Scotland will head to Paris with France likely to come away with a win. Ireland are 4pts behind France in the scoring tally so a big win over Italy is needed if they are to upset Six Nations fancies France.