ANDY FARRELL MIGHT have enjoyed the madness at Murrayfield last time around but Ireland will be hoping for a smoother experience this Sunday.
Let’s give ourselves a reminder of what happened that day in the 2023 Six Nations when Ireland’s Grand Slam could have been derailed but instead they showed remarkable composure.
Number eight Caelan Doris was injured just 12 minutes in, with Jack Conan coming on in the back row.
Six minutes later, a shoulder injury forced hooker Dan Sheehan off and another five minutes after that, second row Iain Henderson had to be replaced by Ryan Baird due to an arm injury.
Most disruptively, replacement hooker Rónan Kelleher’s afternoon finished early in the second half, having clearly had a shoulder injury in the closing stages of the first.
So loosehead prop Cian Healy came on at hooker, with lineout throwing duties going to openside flanker Josh van der Flier.
And late on in the game, centre Garry Ringrose was stretchered off having suffered a nasty head injury.
Despite all the setbacks, Ireland won 22-7, playing impressive rugby in the closing half-hour as James Lowe and Conan scored tries to add to Mack Hansen’s first-half effort.
Whatever about the players’ ability to handle the adversity, Ireland scrum coach John Fogarty admitted yesterday that he was stressed when they lost their second hooker in Kelleher.
What was he thinking at the time?
“F**ked!” said Fogarty with a big laugh.
“Let me try that again… ‘Oh, we’re in big trouble.’
“It was a nightmare. For me, I was in a little bit of a panic. I was talking to Cian Healy about, you know, ‘you’ve got to keep the brake foot up’ and ‘will we do this?’ and ‘will we do that?’
“We came in at half time and I was trying to figure it out in my mind. I walked into Andy and he just goes, ‘This is brilliant!’
He was smiling and way happier in the chaos and what was happening, two hookers, and ‘who’s throwing the ball in?’ and ‘who’s going to scrimmage?’”
Fogarty was worrying about whether he’d done enough preparation with Healy to step in at hooker, where he is always marked as an option on Ireland’s official teamsheets.
“They put us under serious pressure that first half and they’re in their dressing room thinking ‘we’ve got ‘em’, you know, and we’re thinking… there was a little bit of that from me and from Paul [O'Connell].
“Paul isn’t as cool as you might think, he was like ‘f**king…’ but we had a good plan and it was more the playing group.
“The playing group took in all the information, were calm enough to go out there and do what an Irish player does and be competitive, stay in the moment. They were very competitive, they connected, they were tight as a group. We knew we were in a little bit of trouble but we were very connected as a group.”
While it would be bizarre for similar in-game injury problems to hit them for a second ime, Ireland know there will be tough moments again this Sunday at Murrayfield as they look to back up their bonus-point win against England last weekend.
While Ireland are on a 10-game winning streak against the Scots, there have been some tight contests in that run. There won’t be complacency in Ireland camp.
And regardless of what the Scots will bring, this Irish team are determined to improve upon their performance against the English. Fogarty said they weren’t “overly happy” with their showing last Saturday.
“The players are their own biggest critic, and they are coming in excited because it’s a good start but wanting to improve, talking to coaches, talking to each other, ‘This could be better, that could be better,’” said Fogarty.
“That’s the feel on a Tuesday when we come in. There’s excitement that some things were done well, and there’s an understanding that we need to make sure that we’re looking after the pieces that didn’t go quite so well.”
Ireland have generally been able to get the edge over Scotland in the physicality stakes and that will be a big goal again on Sunday.
Fogarty and O’Connell hope to see another imposing performance from their pack.
“I spoke to the pack and then the scrum about the bits that were good in the English match but we don’t deserve anything next week because those parts were good,” said Fogarty.
“We’re now in a place where we need to make sure that any fix-ups are done, that our mentality is in the right place and I can’t say that enough – that we go and attack any team we come up against, but that this week we attack a Scottish pack in the right way.
“We understand it’s going to be a battle, a war over there, as it always is, but our intent is to go and dismantle that pack. That’s the intent of any pack that goes out to play.”
Hope it isn’t too bad