Eddie Is Revving Things Up

ON THE FACE OF IT, the news that former Formula 1 team owner and “professional Irishman” Eddie Jordan is buying London Irish would appear to be a case of yet another entrant in the billionaire's “I can pish my fortune higher up the wall than you can yours” game that is England's Gallagher Premiership.

However, all may not be as it seems, it is being suggested that “Fast Eddie”, if he can complete the deal and fight his way through the jungle of Rugby Union politics, intends to enter the reborn Irish in the BKT United Rugby Championship. To my mind, this is a brilliant move, my only criticism is this – why didn't a Scot come up with this?

Because, I have seen it suggested, both within and without the ranks of London Scottish, that a third Scottish professional side in the URC, based on The Exiles, was the way to go. IF, and given the obstacles he will have to overcome, Eddie faces a hard task in making his plan work, it is a big IF, I suspect it will be another boost for Irish Rugby and another missed opportunity for Scotland.

Eddie is convinced, a London-based URC franchise would almost immediately attract a hard core of support from the huge Irish diaspora in the South of England. Add the equally large Scottish, South African and Welsh diaspora in the same area – keen to see their visiting sides - and there is no reason why London Irish cannot become a powerful force within the URC, attracting big crowds.

Mind you, the Jordan plan still faces some major issues, not least, finding a suitably-sized home in the London area. Add opposition from the Rugby Football Union; some of the “57 Old Farts” in the Twickenham board room might not be too-pleased to see the Celtic cousins running a team in their multi-national competition on their good English turf – or artificial surfaces even.

Eddie may or may not pull off this move, but, at least he is having a go, while Scottish Rugby, who could have done this as well, sits in the pits and does nothing.

I FELL OUT with Richard Bath a couple of decades ago and have never felt the need to mend fences, more-so because he was the one who broke things in the first place. That said, I must admit, he did rather a good job in pulling together that new documentary-drama about The Great Match, the 187a Raeburn Place game which really founded international sport.

If you get the chance, and it is available on You Tube, watch it, it's an hour or more of your life which will lift your spirits. The programme also showed, not a lot has changed in international affairs over the 150-plus years since that game.

Then as now, the English thought they could make the rules, agreed to certain ones, then quite happily broke them, until brought to heel by an unbending Scottish referee. A couple of the “tackles” from England players in the game were straight out of the Owen Farrell play book.

I did enjoy and admire him for doing what he did, seeing Chris Paterson, sans kicking tee and modern composite ball, attempting conversions with the replica 1871 ball. He got the dry ball over no bother, but found it a bit harder with a wet one – food for thought there.

Speaking of the balls which were specially made for the filming. I have, since they started doing it, liked the way the Scotland Captain arrives at Murrayfield carrying what I believe to be the match ball from the opening game at the National Stadium – a sort of Rugby Union version of a Field Marshal's baton.

I (again) offer this suggestion to Keith Wallace and the High Heid Yins in the Murrayfield Junta. Players, unless they go on to win 100 caps, only ever get the one Scotland cap. Well, why not, when a player is elevated to the national captaincy, mark that mil,estone by commissioning a replica leather ball, onto which the match date and details can be tooled. That way they have a tangible, permanent record of having led their country.

Or, since the SRU is skint and the younger Rugby Union writers are all daft – and use the term regardless of how correct it is - why not present each Captain with a genuine Captain's Armband? This is the cheaper option, which ought to go down well with the Murrayfield bean counters.

Slow News Day Perhaps

BACK IN THAT wonderful but perhaps under-appreciated decade the 1970s, work took me to what is now to some the Islamic Republic of West Yorkshire. I eventually, after being stuck for nine months in a “Sales Chain” : was able to buy a house in Dewsbury, in (in the local vernacular) “T' first white street past t' Khyber Pass.” While I waited for the chain to unwind, I lived above a pub in Batley.

This got me into the sub-culture of the Yorkshire Pub Quiz scene, because the pub I was staying in had the top quiz team in the local league. Unfortunately, when it came to the big one, the annual Sunday People Pub Sports Quiz, we could only rarely get the better of Normanton Exchange Club. We were Barcelona to their Real Madrid.

Being in the team meant, we had to train two nights per week, and, for the up-to-date stuff, what had been happening in sport that week, the go-to newspaper for information was The Daily Telegraph. Their coverage was the best, the most-comprehensive and the most-neuitral. Sadly, these days are past and today's Telegraph is just another billionaire-owned right-wing pish promoter.

Its content is also behind a paywall, so I am reliant on other outlets for the information that this week they have been running one of the hardy annuals of sports journalism – the suggeston that a merger between the United Rugby Championship and the Gallagher Premiership is being discussed.

When this one surfaces, it is a sure sign of a slow news day in the middle of a down week in the Guinness Men's Six Nations.

Cards on the table – I am a great admirer of how professional team sports work in North America. Their Big Four Leagues: MBL = Major League Baseball; NBA = National Basketball Association; NFL = National Football League (American Football) and NHL = National Hockey League (Ice Hockey) are models of how to really make money from professional sport.

If EPCR (European Professional Club Rugby) was organised and run like the Big four in North America, Rugby Union would be a bigger, healthier game. But, getting there would mean surmounting several big problems. The biggest is obvious, if there is to be one major Rugby Union league for club teams – The English would want to run it. If you're French, Irish or (to a degree) Scottish, that's a no-no.

The Welsh, and sadly for us up here, a proportion of our population, those of the PSB - that stands for Proud Scot But – will quite happily do the heavy lifting for the English in the vague hope of being described as: “British”. One of the recurring problems with Scottish Rugby is, we appear to have a lot of former Public Schoolboys, tainted by years of exposure to that system and its subliminal task, of converting Scottish boys to good British men, able to go out and run an Empire which no longer exists.

My own view of professional club rugby in England is, it's position is similar to that of the Dodo, on Mauritious in the mid-17^th century. It's still there, but, its days are numbered. The only form of professional Rugby Union which is sustainable is the International game. Paying even supremely-gifted plaeyrs such as Finn Russell £1 million per year on something like 15 home gates of a maximum attendance of 14,000 per game does not make financial sense. It is unsustainable.

Three fully-professional English clubs – London Irish, Wasps and Worcester Warriors have already gone to the wall; others have posted dire financial results and are only being kept afloat by the deep pockets of their billionaire owners. The clubs themselves, with the help of their media cheer-leaders, are attempting to promote the Gallagher Premiership as an alternative to English Football's Premiership. Who are they kidding?

Manchester United – on the back of an average home attendance of around 70,000 and with billionaires in the board room, can afford to have half a team of international-class players sitting in the stand every game. Sale Sharks, able at best to attract 12,000 to the nearby Salford Community Stadium, well, they are living very much in United's shadow. There are other similar comparisons I could make.

The top Rugby Union league in Europe is France's Top 14. Can we really expect their big clubs, all of whom have the support of their local communities as regards facilities etc, and with a mega-Euros television deal to throw-in their lot with the dog's dinner that is English Rugby?

Can we really expect the URC clubs, all of whom are to a degree owned or controlled by their various national Unions, to work with the English clubs, given those club's track record? I think not.

As I have said, a pan-European league, run like a North American professional league, with one overall CEO, with an agreed CBA – that's a Central Bargaining Agreement, that could work.

But, a merger between the well-run and successful URC and the basket case which is the Gallagher Premiereship – that's a disaster waiting to happen and must be avoided at all costs, for the future of our game.

IT WAS GREAT this week to see wee Hollie Davidson following Allan Hosie by becoming the second Scottish international referee to be capped by the SRU. Hollie is a superb match official who deserves this honour, I honestly feel whe will be the lady who breaks through that glass ceiling and becomes the first to have the whistle in a majnor international tournament such as the Six Nations of the Rugby World Cup.

 

 

SRU President Keith Wallace "caps" Hollie Davidson. But, a watching football fan asks, how can she be a referee, that's not a Masonic Handshake.

If talent and ability were the only criteria, she would already be there, but, when you see some of the numpties who do get the whistle, clearly other factors are in play.

I understand from the SRU press release, that wee Mikey Adamson will be the next to be capped. Again, nothing against Mike, who is another good but under-appreciated in Dublin Scottish official. But, and what a pity there has to be a but, I do hope the next taxi off the rank for capping is Boroughmuir's Jim Fleming. No offence, but, I'd have had him second to Mr Hosie on the list.

 

Trying Times For Rugby Union

ONE OF THE MOST-ICONIC advertising campaigns ever run was when Avis Car Rentals admitted: yes, we're the number two car rental company – but – we try harder. If the idea was to turn this admission of sleeves-up commitment into the number one position, the campaign failed, but, it certainly struck a chord and got them noticed.

Perhaps the game of Rugby Union Football should adopt the Avis slogan in it's seemingly, in the United Kingdom anyway, unwinnable battle for hearts and minds with Association Football. I make this suggestion following this week's disclosure that, according to a NAO (National Audit Office) report, some £29 million in government grants, given to sports bodies by DCMS (Department of Culture Media and Sport) to mitigate the effects of Covid will be unrecoverable.

This follows the collapse of three of England's Premiership clubs: London Irish, Wasps and Worcester Warriors. Despite receiving over £41.6 million from DCMS, all three clubs failed. Worse for the game in England, Government officials say they are increasingly pessimistic over the financial stability of professional rugby union, as they defended loans given to sports organisations dueing the pandemic.

A National Audit Office (NAO) report published last year said that as much as £29m of a total £474m lent to sports organisations during the pandemic will not be recovered. Central among the defaulters are three rugby clubs.

Speaking in front of the Public Accounts Committee in parliament on Monday, the director general of policy at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Polly Payne, said the government was now monitoring financial risks not only to clubs but the Premiership itself, and that concerns over financial viability had grown.

Asked by MPs if she anticipated more rugby clubs going into administration in future, Payne said: “We are absolutely reviewing and updating our forecasts. Are we more or less pessimistic than at the time when we gave the loans? I think given everything that has gone on in the sport, we are more pessimistic than we were then. I wouldn’t want to talk about our individual borrowers but absolutely we keep it under review and really care about it.

“In rugby when we have been thinking about likely insolvencies and the financial strength of the individual clubs, we have also thought about the financial situation of the Premier League (sic) as a whole,” she continued. “We have not only been taking account of it, we’ve been using the government’s convening power to try and help with the financial sustainability. We take this very seriously.”

Payne defended the decision to award a total of £123.8m to Premiership clubs, a quarter of the total amount lent at the time. “It wasn’t that there was any special treatment and we didn’t think about it sport by sport,” she said. “I think it’s worth saying that the [total amount] we could have spent was underspent, so it was not the case that other sports missed out.”

Some £10 million of the grant money has apparently been clawed back since the three clubs failed.

This bad news may not, on the face of it, have implications for Scotland, since our club game has never operated in the sometimes fantasy economics world of billionaires pishing cash up against a wall which appears to be the norm in England – the Scottish Rugby Union will (hopefully) never go down the road of paying even Finn Russell £1 million per year to strut his stuff for Edin burgh or Glasgow Warriors.

But, it does demonstrate the problem our game faces in balancing its fair share of the public response to a professional sport with the reality of how rich the “cake” for that sport can be.

English Rugby is the real outlier in trhe professional game. In France, the Top 14 clubs appear to have a better, more substantial financial relationship with the government, both national and local, while, everywhere else, the national governing bodies rather than the clubs control governance.

But, as we have known for over 300 years, 'Mother England' knows best, so I suppose the rest of us can only stock-up on popcorn, sit back and wait for the final implosion.

The Rugby Football Union's finances and governance structures are in a mess. For all the bullishness and “Look how wonderful our game is” approach of English rugby's media cheer-leaders, the Premiership is in a mess; their “Championship” in an even bigger hole.

However, they are operating in a market of over 50 million people, I look at the poor state of the Scottish Rugby Union's finances, in a market one-tenth of that size and yes, I'm worried – very worried.

Do we have the talent and the application; has the Murrayfield Junta the desire and capacity to try harder to get us out of our mess? And can they carry the rest of us with them?

FINALLY – A wee thought, in the wake of that embarrassing non-show at Scottish Gas Murrayfield on Sunday.

Apparently, the International Squad's reward for giving us all red faces with that awful display against Ireland is to be a week's warm-weather training in Spain, to prepare them for their trip to Twickenham.

Has somebody broken this news gently to Jim Telfer? I appreciate “Creamy” is now in his ninth decade and has, apparently mellowed somewhat, but, I wonder if he would have come up with this strategem following a bad loss.

Instead of jetting the squad off to Soain for a week, might I suggest a week in (assuming it has not, as it ought to have been, razed to the ground) the spartan barracks of Broomlea Residential School, West Linton – a fate which befell 11 and 12-year old Ayrshire school children of my “Baby Boomers” generation.

We tended to emerge from West Linton, determined to try harder, to pass “The Quali” just as long as they never made us go back there again. Send the failures of the Irish game there for a week; I am sure that would guarantee victory in London.

 

Monday Morning Musings

WE ALL KNOW – when it comes to supporting Scotland, it's the hope that kills. Over around one thousand years we have become unsurpassed masters of finding ways to turn potential triumph into bitter disaster; in whatever field of life you look, if there's a wrong way to fuck things up, nobody does it like us Scots.

Because, since 1707 we've left all the really big decisions affecting Scotland to our noisy neighbours south of the Solway, just about the only area where Scots control Scotland's destiny is on the sports fields, we have had to be particularly inventive in finding ways to ensure regular Scottish pratt falls. It has to be admitted, we've got really good at fucking things up here.

Indeed, partially because he's got little else to do at the moment, I am here nominating the Grand Old Duke of York – or the Earl of Inverness as he is apparently known up here – as perhaps the best-qualified man to succeed Gregor Townsend, should the new broom at Scottish Gas Murrayfield decide to sweep him out of the door after Sunday.

After all, the Tartan Army, particularly the Rugby Union Division, and more-so against the Irish of late, have been marched up to the top of the hill and back down again so often, they must be dizzy.

OK, maybe it's the desperation of an old war horse, in his eighth decade, but, once again this season, I had high hopes, crushed again. However, let's face it, Scotland losing to a very good Irish side wasn't the worst result of the weekend.

At least I am not a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of:

1. Rangers FC

2. Liverpool FC

3. France

4. Kansas City Chiefs

5. Wales

They all lost to opposition perceived pre-match as inferior, we only got turned over by the Number Two side in the world in our sport. If I am being honest, while admitting we had perhaps bought into believing our own publicity, in the cold light of dawn and accepting home losses perhaps count double, Sunday's result comes nowhere close to a place in any list of Scotland's worst defeats.

So, where do we go from here? That is the rub.

I am not going to jump on the GREGOR MUST GO bandwagon – yet. BUT, this Summer is the mid-point in the four-yearly World Cup cycle. Received wisdom has it that, if an unsuccessful or perceived as under-performing National Head Coach survives one World Cup campaign, then the optimum time to replace him is at the mid-point of the next World Cup cycle. In which case, Toony has three matches left in which to save his job.

Most commentators this morning appear to be seeing this trio of games as two losses – in London and Paris – book-ending a win over the hapless Welsh. I, ever the optimist, reckon we will win the two away games and perhaps slip-up badly at home to the Welsh, that's far-more like the Scottish way.

Look, England didn't beat France on Saturday, France beat themselves – you could replay that game, with the same players, 100 times, and I reckon France would win 99 of them; shite happens occasionally, and Saturday was one such day. England will probably say “Same again” against us and, if we can sort the failures which cost us on Sunday, we will win – because this is not a good England side.

By the time we get to Paris, Ireland will probably have beaten France and guaranteed themselves the title, so France will be a bit down, in which case we can, as England did, catch them out.

But Wales, travelling up here on a wing and a prayer – that worries me – immensely.

So, where did we go wrong on Sunday? It might be easier to list where we went well: we defended really well, but, the reality was, we lost to a far-superior team.

It's an old Rugby Union truism:

• Forwards win games – backs decide by how much

On Saturday our forwards were over-powered and our backs, particularly after we lost Finn and Darcy in one moment, never got going. What can we do to rectify matters?

I would start by pulling Grant Gilchrist and Jonny Gray aside, saying: “Well done thou good and faithful servants” and putting them out to pasture. Big Gilcho has given his all, but, he gets nowhere near my list of the top Scottish locks I have seen. Gray Minor, even when he was being lauded as the next big lump – well, for all the impressive tackling stats of his early years, I never thought him as good as his big brother. He has flattered to deceive and now, in his thirties, he will sady go down as someone who never trained-on the realise his full potential.

As things stand, Scott Cummings and Max Williamson appear to be the immediate future, with Cam Henderson, Alex Samuel and Jare Oguntibeju the next taxis off the rank. For this season, get Sam Skinner and Cam Henderson into the boiler-house for Twickenham and take it from there. That might cure the current lack of grunt; elsewhere, we have to accept, Jack Dempsey is still a bit off the pace after injuries, while Matt Fagerson was maybe due the off-day he had on Sunday.

In ice hockey terms, Peter O'Mahony is Ireland's “enforcer” and I have long felt, on the evidence of Glasgow v Munster games, that the younger Fagerson was growing into the guy who could neutralise POM, sadly, that didn't happen on Sunday.

However, if England, at Twickenham, doesn't bring out the best in him – we have a real problem. Of course, for us to win there, we need the real Finn Russell to turn-up, ready to rock 'n' roll.

Reading that I had a thought: here I am - classic Scottish behaviour – it'll be all right, provided we beat THEM. 'Twas ever thus.

 

A Pissed-Off Scot Reflects On The Weekend Action

WHEN YOU HAVE captured as many Wooden Spoons as Italy has, over their 25 years in the Six Nations, there is perhaps a case for suffering from “squeaky bum syndrome” when, as in Rome on Saturday, you are on the verge of a significant victory. Certainly the Italians got a wee bit mervous in the final quarter. When such an experienced operater as Tommasso Allen starts missing kicks similar to ones he had hitherto been knocking over with aplomb, you know the prospect of victory is getting to them.

But, to their credit, the Azzurri pulled themselves together and got over the line; you now, after that game, have to believe the Spoon is heading for Cardiff this year.

Mind you, I reckon, if they stick with some of these young players, Wales will be back to their insufferable best within a season or two, perhaps by the end of Ithis World Cup round. Whether or not Warren Gatland is still their Honcho by then is another issue. I have never been a Gatland fan, but, his coaching record would seem to demand he is given the chance to complete the rebuild, should be wish to do so.

I would not, however, given the criticism he is having to tolerate, for a situation over which he has little control – he can only select from the player pool the Regions and the WRU give him. If the talent isn't there there is not a lot he can do in the time he has with the squad.

GIVEN WE ARE in London's hands when it comes to how each weekend 's games are broadcast, “Le Crunch” between England and France was always going to be the most-hyped of the three Round Two matches.

I switched my television offimmediately the final whistle blew at Twickenham. No way was I going to endure a post mortem of what a terrific victory this was for England. OK, fair's fair, they defended terrificly-well, they took their limited number of chances in the game, but, the reality was: England didn't win this game – France lost it. This win was the grandest of Grand Larceny.

I am convinced, on a dry day, and on 99 games out of 100, France would have won that game by a street. Be honest, have you ever seen a French side make as many unforced errors, drop as many simple balls, as Les Bleus managed to mess up on Saturday.

OK Damien Penaud has the greed of the natural finisher, so, I could hardly blame him for backing himself, with two colleagues open on his left, and going right, into defensive traffic. When even The G.O.A.T. Antione Dupont, makes basic errors and drops passes he normally plucks out of the air one-handed, you might believe God is an Englishman.

In truth, it wasn't a great game; too many mistakes, not enough quality. However, of the few flashes of genuinely good rugby we did see, the majority came from the French. This was a rare case of the better team losing.

THEN CAME SCOTTISH GAS MURRAYFIELD on Sunday. This one was the Game of the Weekend, it had to be, since it was the only one featuring two unbeaten sides. Sadly, from a Scottish perspective, it was a case of same old, same old and the hope if not killing us, being killed by a vastly-superior Irish side.

The in-breds from south of the Limpopo might chant “vier wêreldbekers” from now until the end of time, but that will not alter the reality, this current Irish squad is one hugely-talented, well-coached unit. Some days, you just have to hold your hand up and admit: “We were well-beaten by a superior side.”

As ever with Scotland, we are left to sift through the ashes for something tangible to cling to going forward and on this occasion, finding little consolation. Sure the loss of Finn Russell and Darcy Graham were blows for us, but, as John Barclay said at the end: we made too-many unforced errors, turned the ball over too-easily and too-often.

OK, Ronan O'Gara's myopic triumphalism made you wish he had been around in the days of Scotland's 1970s “Mean Machine” - to teach him abit of humility, but, really, it was Men against Boys; we can only suck it up and move on.

We had plenty of minuses and few plusses from this disappointment – just another two steps backwards, the lot of a Tartan Army foot soldier.

No wonder the family cat has vanished, he fears what may be coming.

 

Ayr's Progress UnMarred

MORE THAN half a century of immersion in Ayrshire Rugby gives you a certain perspective; so, even before Richie Simpson kicked off at Millbrae last night, Ayr v Marr was going to be more arm wrestle than champagne running rugby.

Perhaps, had young Master Simpson lasted longer than 25 minutes on the park – if it wasn't for his bad luck with injuries, that boy would have no luck – Ayr's backs might have turned on the style. During Simpson's all too short cameo, big Jamie Shedden showed what a great attacking threat he is; but, after Simpson limped off, the Ayr back division struggled to make an impact.

Some of the passes young Richie pulls off are very Finn Russell, if he can stay fit and get a god run of games, he definitely has a future in the game.

His premature departure perhaps detracted from the entertainment value, but it made little difference to the final outcome, as, in spite of some very spirited defence from the visitors, the big home pack made hay, scoring five of their side's six tries, and forcing Marr to concede the final Penalty Try. Marr tried everything, legal and illegal, to halt the juggernaut, but, particularly when they got their maul moving, Ayr would not be denied.

It took them just 104 seconds to make the breakthrough, skipper Blair Macpherson as ever leading from the front. If it works, why change things, so Ed Bloodworth went over for Ayr's second try, before, as the opening quarter ended, James Malcolm steered another rolling maul over for his tenth try of the season.

Then, with Simpson off, to be replaced by Andy Stirrat and Oscar Baird on the naughty step, the home team lost their way a bit. Marr were definitely in the ascendancy at this point, but they could not find a way through some determined Ayr defending, best exemplified by Bloodworth's line-out steal to thwart Marr right at the end of the half.

Perhaps the difference between the two sides was shown in the 45^th minute, when, with five or six Marr players celebrating what they thought was a tie, the Ayr team played to the whistle and were rewarded with a drop out from the in-goal area – further proof of Ayr's defensive rigour.

By this time, some of the home faithful were getting a bit anxious, since the bonus point try had still not been scored. Things changed in 53 minutes when, off another advancing maul, replacement prop Rhodri Tanner burst over down the narrow side. Marr then lost the influential Blair Jardine to a yellow card and Ayr took advantage, skipper Macpherson grabbing his second try – his final contribution to the victory.

Five tries scored, all by forwards, then finally, inside the final ten minutes, the home backs got their reward when full back Robbie Orr crossed, mind you, he was put in by a sumptous offload from flanker Ryan Sweeney.

In the final minute, Sweeney was over again, but, to his chagrin,he looked up to see referee Ruaridh Campbell sprinting to between the posts to indicate a Penalty Try.

I didn't think the usually excellent Mr Campbell was at his best. He was hot on the Ayr infringements, but seemed a bit blind to some of Marr's chicanery. But, he dealt firmly with the three outbreaks of “handbags” on the night.

The Derby certainly attracted a big crowd, on a still evening. Considering the rival attraction, just up the road at Somerset Park, of the Ayr United v Hibs Scottish Cup tie, the turn-out was terrific; the pre-game light show was impressive and the new floodlights are certainly a huge step up from the set-up they replaced.

So, a 45-0 win, another five points and the certainty of retaining top spot in the Arnold Clark Premiership, a good ending to a super week for Ayr.

I watched the game on BBC Alba, ok, this meant I missed out on the usual Ayr hospitality, but, on the plus side, I got to recline in my very-expensive arm chair, in front of a real coal fire, and I didn't have to explain what was happening in front of us to young Iain Hay. Not a bad situation for an old coffin dodger like me.

Mind you, I was not overly impressed by Iona Whyte's commentary – well the English language stuff which I could understand – I wish Alba would offer an English language option, or even a broad Scots one. I missed Paul Mitchell and Lee Jones, for my money the best Scottish commentating team.

 

My Preview Of The Ireland Game

EVERY NOW AND THEN I think, maybe, at long last, I am getting the hang of this Rugby Union writing lark. I had one such flash of inspiration at lunch-time on Friday, when the Scotland team to face Ireland, at Scottish Gas Murrayfield on Sunday was announced.

The match day squad is:

I reckoned Pierre Schoeman has been coasting in recent games, not making the impact we might expect from such a big unit; hopefullybeing dropped to the bench will be the boot up the jacksie he perhaps needed.

Gregor Townsend does have history in loyalty to his players, so it is no surprise to see him retaining Grant Gilchrist and Jonny Gray retaining their places in the boilerhouse. Some have been calling for Leicester's Cameron Henderson to be given his chance; he, however, has not even made the 23, with the more-experienced Sam Skinner being recalled to the bench.

Jack Dempsey is also back in an all-Glasgow starting back row' he will bring some go-forward while the head-to-head between Matt Fagerson and Ireland's re-called Peter O'Mahony might well be worth the admission money on its own. Townsend has gone for a 6-2 bench split, which has brought the more-versatile Jamie Dobie onto the bench for George Horne.

There is one change to the starting back division, again one anticipated, with Tom Jordan coming in at 12, with Stafford McDowall dropping to the bench. After TJ's wee cameo off the bench against Italy, this change makes sense, although big Stafford did little wrong on Saturday.

Even some Irish fans are saying the recall of veteran O'Mahony to the number six shirt is a back-handed compliment to the Scots. We know we thrive off fast ruck ball and there are few in world rugby who can disrupt and slow down ruck ball than the 110-times Munsterman.

The Irish squad (in 1-23 order) is:

Andrew Porter, Ronan Kelleher, Finlay Bealham, James Ryan, Tadhg Beirne, Peter O'Mahony, Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris (Captain); Jamison Gibson-Park, Sam Prendergast; James Lowe, Bundee Aki, Robbie Henshaw, Mack Hensen; Hugo Keenan. Replacements: Dan Sheehan, Cian Healy, Thomas Clarkson, Ryan Baird, Jack Conan, Conor Murray, Jack Crowley, Garry Ringrose.

The third team on the park on Sunday, the referees, are led by New Zealand's James Doleman, who has compatriot Ben O'Keefe and France's Luc Ramos on the flags, with another Kiwi, Richard Kelly on TMO duties, while England's Andrew Jackson is the Foul Play Revidew Officer in “the bunker”.

Speaking of referees, Hollie Davidson has charge of the Rugby Europe Championship match between Belgium and Romania this weekend. She has David Sutherland and Finlay Brown as her ARs, with Ireland's Colin Stanley as TMO.