6 NATIONS: IRELAND...37 SCOTLAND...16: March 27th, 2004, Lansdowne Road now joins six other dates in the pantheon of Irish rugby success stories.
It was the day when this burgeoning Irish team, the best Irish team in two decades, was finally crowned with something tangible, even if, ironically, a Triple Crown carries with it something more mythical than actual silverware.
It was also the day, perhaps, when Brian O'Driscoll's captaincy was crowned as well. His brilliance has long been garnishing Lansdowne Road on Saturday afternoons, and though there were no tries or scything breaks as such, he gave one of those all-action, all-purpose performances which underlined he's not shy about doing the nitty-gritty either - tackling, poaching, reading and gathering up-and-unders - and perhaps one of his best passing displays in an Ireland jersey.
In all of this, and more, he has become a great leader; and those words are chosen on the back of a record of 12 wins out of 13 as captain - the sole blemish being to England in that Grand Slam decider last year. And it's not just by dint of his high achievements on the pitch or the training ground. His easy-going manner exudes confidence, and he has clearly transmitted this to his team-mates, but in the post-Keith Wood era, O'Driscoll has also given those around him their heads. His team-mates' own leadership has blossomed under his.
He may not have the same inspiring addresses from the pulpit as Wood, but when he has to it would seem as if his words have an equally positive effect. If there was one critical moment on Saturday it came after Chris Paterson converted Allister Hogg's 49th-minute try to make it 16-16. An overly expectant and nervous crowd had transmitted their apprehension to the team from early on (or was it vice versa?).
You still sensed Scotland wouldn't have the confidence, the requisite fitness (especially after a day less to recover from the previous week), or the same established combinations throughout the team to be as durable as Ireland over the last half hour, that class would tell.
More relevant was always going to be how Ireland would react. O'Driscoll pulled his team into a huddle. He downplayed his own role at that juncture, merely stating that he said:
"It was pretty necessary to score next. Just that we had to get down there and play a bit of territory. At that point in the game we hadn't played in their half too much. Just get down there, hold on to the ball through a few phases and score next."
"I think Brian hit the nail on the hand," commented O'Gara afterwards. "He said that's just a setback, that's all it is. I felt with the personnel we had once we got into their territory we'd score."
Cue David Wallace's individualistic try.
"The great thing about Wally is that everybody in the Irish team knows how strong he is but not everyone else does," observed O'Driscoll. "That's what he brings to your side."
Scotland came knocking patiently again, and O'Driscoll's wraparound tackle on the big Scottish lock Stuart Grimes to prevent a try-scoring offload was a humdinger, before Peter Stringer sniped for a rare try, and such was his adrenalin from scoring he'd have made it back to Cork had the Havelock terracing not been in his way.
Gordon D'Arcy's second was an uncanny reprise of O'Driscoll's try the previous week against Italy, albeit from farther out and with an exchange of passes with Geordan Murphy.
It underlined not only how dangerous these elusive and kindred spirits can be from broken play - now one of the game's prime ways of scoring against well-organised, modern-day defences - but also how teams, curiously, defend so much softer on the blindside, and don't push up. If one score, or even one phase of play, underlined the essential difference this past little while between Ireland and Scotland, that try was it.
Scotland just don't have a back with the dancing feet, elusiveness or game-breaking ability of a D'Arcy, an O'Driscoll or a Murphy.
Well though they played, recycling the ball and holding on to it for long stretches without the handling errors that have blighted their previous performances in this championship, they have nothing like the same cutting edge.
In a curious way, nothing demonstrated this more than Hogg's try. Undoubtedly, Matt Williams was right to laud his team's patience in the built-up to the score. All told, they went through 19 phases, but even when it looked like they might have extra men out wide, they didn't have the inclination, or perhaps the belief, to go wide, and instead kept hammering away until Ireland ran out of numbers.
Yet in many ways, even if not all the Scottish media and rugby public might see it this way, Scotland regained a fair bit of their pride on Saturday. As expected, they competed well in the evenly-contested set-pieces, defending the Irish maul particularly well by pulling it down early, with Grimes especially running the risk of a fair old shoeing or a yellow card or both on more than one occasion.
Tactically, they kept Ireland to just four lineouts and three scrums inside the Scottish half in the first period. They made Ireland roll up their sleeves and work for their win, which made the three-try flourish in the last half hour all the more enjoyable.
Mindful perhaps, of the dancing feet and ability of O'Driscoll and D'Arcy to attack them on their inside shoulders, they didn't seem to drift as much, but such are the attacking riches at Ireland's disposal that the backs instead sought to go outside the four-up Scottish defence.
The cut-out floater from O'Driscoll to Girvan Dempsey and the good lines taken by Shane Horgan and Gordon D'Arcy had seen four of Matt Williams's former charges combine for the opening try.
The Irish pack mightn't have been as domineering as in the two previous games at Lansdowne Road, against Wales and Italy, but on this crowning day, the brilliance of this Irish back line was a more fitting way to garnish March 27th, 2004.
Scoring Sequence
2 mins: Paterson pen 0-3
5 mins: O'Gara pen 3-3
19 mins: D'Arcy try 8-3
23 mins: Paterson pen 8-6
25 mins: O'Gara pen 11-6
37 mins: Parks drop goal 11-9
39 mins: Murphy try 16-9
Half-time: 16-9
49 mins: Hogg try, Paterson con 16-16
54 mins: Wallace try, O'Gara con 23-16
63 mins: Stringer try, O'Gara con30-16
74 mins: D'Arcy try, O'Gara con 37-16
THE TEAMS
IRELAND: G Dempsey (Leinster-Terenure); S Horgan (Leinster-Lansdowne), G D'Arcy (Leinster-Lansdowne), B O'Driscoll (Leinster-Blackrock, capt), G Murphy (Leicester); R O'Gara (Munster-Cork Constitution), P Stringer (Munster-Shannon); R Corrigan (Leinster-Greystones), S Byrne (Leinster -Blackrock), J Hayes (Munster-Shannon), M O'Kelly (Leinster-St Mary's), P O'Connell (Munster-Young Munster), S Easterby (Llanelli), A Foley (Munster-Shannon), D Wallace (Munster-Garryowen).
Replacements: D O'Callaghan (Munster-Cork Constitution) for O'Kelly (49-54 mins and 79 mins), M Horan (Munster-Shannon) for Corrigan (60 mins), F Sheahan (Munster-Cork Constitution) for Byrne, V Costello (Leinster-St Mary's) for Wallace, G Easterby (Rotherham) for Stringer, D Humphreys (Ulster-Dungannon) for O'Gara, K Maggs (Bath) for D'Arcy (all 79 mins).
SCOTLAND: C Paterson (Edinburgh Rugby); S Danielli (Bath), T Philip (Edinburgh Rugby), A Henderson (Glasgow Rugby), S Webster (Edinburgh Rugby); D Parks (Glasgow Rugby), C Cusiter (Borders); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh Rugby), G Bulloch (Glasgow Rugby), B Douglas (Borders), S Murray (Edinburgh Rugby), S Grimes (Newcastle Falcons), J White (Sale Sharks), S Taylor (Edinburgh Rugby), A Hogg (Edinburgh Rugby).
Replacements: G Kerr (Leeds Tykes) for Jacobsen (half-time), J Petrie (Glasgow) for Taylor (42 mins), N Hines (Edinburgh Rugby) for Grimes, M Blair (Edinburgh Rugby) for Cusiter (both 59 mins), B Laney (Edinburgh Rugby) for Henderson (67 mins), R Russell (Saracens) for Bulloch (73 mins), D Lee (Edinburgh Rugby) for Danielli (77 mins).
Referee: Nigel Williams (Wales).
