One of the curiosities about sport is how some teams or individual players become bugbears for specific rivals. A prime example in modern Six Nations history is that Scotland have cracked the code to beating England but, much to their and Gregor Townsend’s frustration, not so against Ireland.
Scotland go to Twickenham in round three next Saturday fortnight having already equalled the country’s all-time record of four successive wins over England, which was achieved in 1970-73 and 1993-97. Hence they have an opportunity to establish the longest winning sequence in the history of a fixture that dates back to 1871 and covers 142 matches.
What makes this even more of an exceptional time in this Calcutta Cup rivalry is that when Finn Russell was unveiling his bag of tricks and producing that pass at Murrayfield in 2018, the Scottish victory ended a run of eight consecutive England wins over the auld enemy.
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The sides enacted a thrilling 38-38 draw in the 2019 Six Nations finale at Twickenham, when Scotland came back from a 31-0 deficit to lead in an extraordinary match, before England had a rain-sodden 13-6 win at Murrayfield a year later.
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Since then, the Scots have won the last four.
In contrast, Simon Easterby’s team head to Edinburgh for Sunday’s round two game at Murrayfield on the back of a 10-game winning streak dating back to the year after Scotland’s 27-22 win in Murrayfield in 2017. This is the longest Irish winning run over the course of the 142 fixtures contested by the countries since 1877.
An Irish win would also equal the record winning sequence in the history of the fixture, matching the 11 matches Scotland won in a row from 1882 to 1893.
Furthermore, before Warren Gatland picked five new caps and Ireland beat Scotland 44-22 in 2000, Ireland had managed just one draw in the previous dozen meetings.
As Townsend readily admitted: “Against England, we’ve been there before and won this fixture. It’s something we’re striving to do against Ireland. We’ve not broke that cycle the last eight or nine years now, it’s hard to break the cycle but once you’ve broken it, it just becomes another match.
“The weight of history between Scotland and England has dissipated, it’s now a game of equals who are competitive against each other. You can’t guarantee the outcome, but for a number of years people expected England to win. We’ll have to be close to our best.”
There have been a couple of close shaves in Ireland’s 10-match winning run, such as the 27-24 victory at Murrayfield in 2021 or the squeaky 17-13 title-clincher in the Aviva a year ago. Like Easterby, Townsend conveys a calm personality but the losing run must wreck his head.
“I suppose it does, if you’re losing to a team every year until this year it is disappointing. It’s not through a lack of effort, the effort we put in in Dublin last year was outstanding, the physicality. At half time, we conceded a soft try which was out lineout ball and it was close at half time and in the last minute of the game when Huw [Jones] scored and it was a four-point game.
“A lot of it is about what we would do differently, but we also understand that Ireland have been a top team now for a while and it’s harder to break that cycle when the team you’re playing against has been that good and has that experience.
“There have been opportunities. Two years ago in Murrayfield was a good opportunity,” said Townsend in reference to the Six Nations meeting when Ireland pulled through 22-7 despite losing Dan Sheehan, Caelan Doris and Iain Henderson in the first 25 minutes, and then Rónan Kelleher early in the second half, after which Cian Healy packed down at hooker while Josh van der Flier did the throwing.
“We played well in the first half, Ireland had injury issues in the second half and we made errors, the game was there for us. Ireland recovered after their injuries and deserved to win, but there was a moment there where, if we’d upped our game we’d have won, but we didn’t and you can’t let any moment slip against the best teams, which Ireland have been.”
Whether consciously or subconsciously, when one team or a player has the hex over another, they believe they can hang tough because history has told them as much, whereas history can only spread doubt in those on the losing run.
“There’s a reference point we have against England where, if they’re in a bit of trouble the players can think ‘we’ve been here before and won’ and we have not had that against Ireland,” said Townsend.
“Ireland probably have a calmness and confidence about them when they’re in trouble, not just against us, and they see it through.
“But we’ve had other experiences against other teams, sometimes good and sometimes bad, but it all goes into the mix. Our players, at club level, have had experiences of winning against South African and Irish teams, that should help.
“But we know it will take a huge effort to get over the line.”
