Early days and true to character Simon Easterby isn’t shouting from the rooftops just yet. But on a bitterly cold day in Murrayfield he could bask in the warm glow of a perfect 10-point haul from his opening two games as interim head coach.
Easterby did cut a contented figure after Ireland’s 32-18 win over Scotland, the only away victory in the opening two rounds of matches, left them in first place and four points clear of France and England in the Six Nations table. The squad take a breather before reassembling on Wednesday night for a short get-together until Friday, ahead of the tournament’s weekend break and next Saturday week’s meeting with bottom-placed Wales in Cardiff.
“I think we set out at the beginning of this championship to work hard, keep getting better, keep challenging each other in our standards and I think we’re seeing some of that today,” said Easterby after Ireland’s second bonus-point win, before referencing Ireland’s tilt at a historic third title in succession.
“There is an opportunity which has been well-documented and we’ve got to make sure that we prepare in the right way for Wales and go to the Millennium Stadium with the same sort of mindset that we came here with.”
To that end, Ireland doused early Scottish fervour with an early onslaught which yielded a seventh-minute try by Calvin Nash on his first outing for the side since last summer’s two Tests in South Africa, having also been a regular in last season’s championship defence.
Caelan Doris admitted that Ireland had sought a quick start.
“We know that they are a confident outfit and rightly so. We had spoken about a fast start and I think we did that pretty well, scoring within the first 10 minutes and applying quite a bit of pressure.
“When you get up a couple of scores, it’s very enjoyable. It’s enjoyable to be part of this group in general. The lads love representing the group, love representing the country. It was a very enjoyable one today.”
The Ireland captain had evidently enjoyed himself.
Sam Prendergast, the man of the match who yet again passed the latest test of his talent and character, landed a penalty and converted a try by Doris, but if anything the 17-0 led should have been bigger after Scotland lost Finn Russell and Darcy Graham after a clash of heads.
This feeling was compounded when Scotland scored 11 points either side of the interval but that made Ireland’s composed response all the more impressive.
“I think you are always going to come up against a purple patch,” reasoned the eminently reasonable Easterby. “Scotland playing the way they do, they were missing Finn Russell and Darcy Graham and hopefully he’s okay.
“But we always knew that they were going to come out of the blocks and try and stress us defensively. At times we dealt with it really well and at times they stretched us, and that’s part of the game.
“I thought we scrambled well. We managed to turn around a few situations where they got a little bit of ascendancy and we kept them at arm’s length. Then we had the opportunity to go up the other end and be clinical with the ball.”
Doris said the key at that tricky period of the match was “backing what we do”, adding that they could draw comfort from coming through all manner of setbacks in the win here two years ago.
“That game over here epitomised the calm in chaos and trusting that we’ll figure things out as we go on the pitch. I think it was the most experienced Irish team ever in terms of caps and I think that showed in terms of the calmness there. Coming in together, taking a breath, acknowledging where we’re at and getting back to the plan fairly quickly. We saw that today and we saw that two years ago. It’s been a real strength of ours over the last number of years.
Gregor Townsend revealed that they did not allow Russell to rejoin the game despite passing his head injury assessment, as he wasn’t aware of his team’s next play, while Graham was sent to hospital as a precaution.
“He passed his HIA. It was more communication that Pete Horne and a couple of other guys on the sideline were having with him. We decided it wasn’t right. He had passed his HIA, but there were a couple of things he wasn’t remembering about plays. So we made the call not to put him back on.
“Yes, he’s fine,” said Townsend. “He’s obviously frustrated. It was a freak injury when you collide with your own player. It happened to him once before with Zander [Fagerson] playing for Glasgow against Connacht many years ago
Regarding Graham, the Scottish head coach said: “We are still waiting to go for scans. I believe there are no issues around his neck. But more just seeing where the concussion has come from. I’m just hoping there are no broken bones around the face or skull area. He’s failed his HIA.”
This was Scotland’s 11th defeat in a row against Ireland, all of them with Townsend as their head coach.
“I think we have to praise Ireland for what they’ve done structurally over the last few years. They’ve been in the top two or top three of world rugby for a while now. Sometimes number one, often number two.
They’re going for something unprecedented this year, which is a third Six Nations title in a row. No team’s done that.
“What they’re doing is producing results and quality performances. We, unfortunately, came up against them during this period and have not managed to get ahead on the scoreboard at the end.”
