Ireland outscored Scotland by four tries to three in a hard-fought GUINNESS Summer Series clash, as Joe Schmidt’s men made it nine consecutive home wins in front of 31,780 fans at the Aviva Stadium.
SKY SPORTS VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: IRELAND 28 SCOTLAND 22
In a stop-start affair, Ireland struck twice in the final quarter to edge out a highly competitive Scottish side who helped themselves to tries from Blair Cowan, captain Henry Pyrgos and Peter Horne.
Chris Henry marked his return to the number 7 jersey with a well-taken try on the quarter hour, but Cowan replied during a purple patch for Scotland and it was all-square at half-time – 7-7.
Vern Cotter’s charges hit the front just four minutes into the second half when scrum half Pyrgos sniped over from close range. A Horne penalty, in response to a muscular maul effort from Sean Cronin, had Scotland 15-14 to the good.
However, much-changed Ireland, under the captaincy of Sean O’Brien, broke clear of the visitors in telling fashion. Either side of Horne’s 64th-minute try, Ian Madigan took centre stage by setting up converted scores for man-of-the-match Simon Zebo and Luke Fitzgerald.
Madigan’s slick passing sent replacement Dave Kearney through an initial midfield gap before he put Zebo over from inside the 22. Then, the out-half floated a pinpoint cross-field kick over to the left wing for Fitzgerald to gather it without breaking stride and finish off his first international try since 2009.
Madigan converted to take the hosts six points clear and although he put a subsequent penalty attempt wide, Ireland tightened up in defence to prevent Scotland from striking back in the dying minutes.
All 23 players were used by Joe Schmidt, including new caps Jack Conan and Nathan White, and new combinations were tested with Gordon D’Arcy – now Ireland’s longest-serving player (15 years and 304 days) – linking with Jared Payne in the centre, and O’Brien and Zebo getting game-time at number 8 and full-back respectively.
Giving his post-match reaction, head coach Schmidt said: “The real positive is that we were tested at a number of levels from the very first lineout. The scrum went really well. We were tested on the scoreboard and we had to show character to come back.
“We were tested in defence and we fell off a number of tackles. But the most important thing is we had a clean bill of health, apart from cramp which is not unusual at this stage of the season.
“We only had a few sessions together with this team. The lads last week had a full week to prepare (for Wales) but were not put under the same amount of pressure as we were today against Scotland.
“We were a bit static in the first half and when we opened up, we looked good in attack but not so good in defence which was probably why there were five tries in the second half.”
Back rower O’Brien, who became the 104th man to captain Ireland, added: “I’ll take the win. It was a mixed bag, even for me personally. I got a few turnovers which helped. We didn’t help ourselves in terms of forcing passes and not playing in the right areas. We have improvements to make.”
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