Ireland interim head coach Simon Easterby was happy with how Ireland ‘delivered a lot of what we had worked on in the week’ as they closed out round 2 of the Guinness Men’s Six Nations with a convincing 32-18 win away to Scotland.
Ireland dominated the first-half exchanges to lead 17-0 after 31 minutes and secured the bonus point through replacement Jack Conan by the hour mark, but as ever, the home side had their periods of ascendancy at Scottish Gas Murrayfield.
Duhan van der Merwe returned from the sin bin to leap over in the left corner on the stroke of half-time, and Scotland added to that try with a brace of early second-half penalties from Blair Kinghorn.
However, six points was as close as they could get, as Ireland pulled clear again with James Lowe and Conan both touching down in quick succession and player-of-the-match Sam Prendergast completing his 12-point kicking haul.
Speaking in the aftermath, interim head coach Easterby said: “I think you’re always going to come up against a purple patch. Scotland, playing the way they do, they were missing Finn Russell and Darcy Graham (who both went off injured), and hopefully Darcy’s okay.
“We always know that they’re going to come out out of the blocks and try and stress a team defensively the way they play the game. At times we dealt with it really well, and at times they stretched us.
“That’s part of the game, and I thought we scrambled well. We managed to kind of turn around a few situations where they got a little bit of ascendancy.
“We kept them at arm’s length, and then we had the opportunity to go up the other end and be clinical with the ball.”
The sharpness of Ireland’s attack could be summed up by the fact that they scored four tries and 32 points – their highest points tally at Murrayfield since 2015 – from just 15.2 attacking minutes compared to Scotland’s 20.3. The Scots also had more carries, metres gained, and defenders beaten.
Defensively, the visitors were able to frustrate Gregor Townsend’s men at regular intervals, leading to 23 handling errors and 16 turnovers conceded. Ireland had an 86.77% tackle success rate and made five breakdown steals.
Pleased with his players’ efforts on both sides of the ball, Easterby insisted: “We always knew that we’d have to shut them down and stop them getting time and space and the momentum. I thought we did that really well without the ball.
But also on attack, I felt we delivered a lot of what we had worked on in the week around trying to attack Scotland in the right way.
“Although we conceded late in the first half, I thought the (17-5) scoreline was a reflection of our dominance of the game. Maybe we could have been one or two more scores up.”
Young out-half Prendergast stepped up in his first Test appearance outside of Ireland to score a dozen points, and had a hand in two of the two tries. He lofted a 24.2 metre pass off his left – the longest of the 2025 tournament so far – for Calvin Nash’s seventh-minute try.
The Ireland coaches have put a lot of faith in Prendergast to start the opening two Six Nations matches against England and Scotland. Such was his influence yesterday that the Kildare youngster, who turns 22 on Wednesday, was selected as the player of the match.
Asked about Prendergast’s performance, Easterby replied: “He was good, wasn’t he? Playing in a different game, away from home, he delivered not only in terms of the kind of mixing his game, attacking the line, his kicking game but also off the tee he was excellent.
“It just allowed us to probably keep staying ahead and keep pushing out the scoreline which, on some other days, it’s tighter than it needs to be.
“But I thought Sam was excellent, and he was good across his game both in attack and defence.”
When receiving his individual award, the Leinster half-back was quick to praise the players around him who provided a platform for him to orchestrate the attack alongside Gibson-Park, mixing it up with his impressive range of passing and probing kicks out of hand.
Up front, there was a big shift from the forwards, who got on top physically from early on. Josh van der Flier was the game’s leading tackler with 19 tackles made and also beat three defenders. Captain Caelan Doris scored a try and made 57 metres from 10 carries.
Ireland’s tight five was hugely effective, particularly starting props Andrew Porter and Finlay Bealham who both scrummaged well and made their presence felt in the loose with a combined 25 tackles, a block-down, and a turnover penalty.
“I thought the forward pack was excellent,” admitted Easterby. “I thought our set-piece attack was good but our set-piece ‘D’ was excellent, and that’s so difficult for a team to get into their rhythm when they’re getting scrappy ball and the delivery of lineouts and scrums isn’t what they’d like.
“I think that kind of forward unit, both sides of the ball, attack and defence, delivered a great platform for us.”
The only team still in contention for a Grand Slam, Ireland will be heavy favourites to extend their winning run when they visit bottom side Wales on Saturday week.
France and Italy await in the final rounds next month, but the back-to-back champions, who now hold a four-point lead at the top of the table, will maintain the week-to-week focus that has served them so well.
“I think we set out at the beginning of this Championship to work hard and keep getting better, keep challenging each other in terms of the standards, and I think we’re seeing some of that today.
“There is an opportunity which has been well documented. We’ve got to make sure that we prepare in the right way for Wales, and go to Cardiff with the same sort of mindset that we came here with,” added the former Ireland and British & Irish Lions flanker.