DEVIN TONER, IAIN Henderson, Tadhg Beirne, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, Andrew Conway, CJ Stander, Dan Leavy, Luke McGrath, Kieran Marmion.
Ireland’s injury list has stacked up heavily in recent weeks, although it does provide exciting chances for the likes of Quinn Roux, Jack Conan and Chris Farrell this weekend against Scotland in the Six Nations.
Joe Schmidt has been keen to stress a “fantastic opportunity” for Ireland to test themselves and adapt in order to bounce back from last weekend’s defeat to England, but Gregor Townsend’s Scots will be eyeing an opportunity.
Ireland had a painful defeat on their last visit to Murrayfield in 2017 and, speaking on this week’s episode of The42 Rugby Weekly, Bernard Jackman expressed his concerns.
“They’re very dangerous,” said Jackman of the Scots. “This is a really dangerous game for us because of what happened to us at the weekend and the nature of it.
“The way to beat Scotland is to physically dominate them. Every game is won around that but that’s their Achilles’ heel.
“Ireland, based on everything we’ve seen up until last Saturday, can do it to them but you wonder why we didn’t perform to that level [last weekend].
“In fairness to Scotland, they’ve got some boys in their pack – Jonny Gray is a big boost for them, I really like Grant Gilchrist, Josh Strauss has come back in and he’s physical.
“Also, if we’re off defensively – the reality is we conceded four tries against England, which is worrying. Only Italy and Scotland conceded more tries than us last year in the Six Nations, although in November our defence was very good and we were conceding only an average of a try a game.
“If we get loose and if we’re not urgent and don’t slow the ball down, these guys will go from everywhere. They’ll concede tries but I think this is a very dangerous game.
“I do think we’ll win but the doubt is why we weren’t as dominant physically last weekend as we normally are. I do trust that Ireland will get it right but it does put a little bit of a question mark in your head.”
Former Ireland and Leinster hooker Jackman joined Gavan Casey and Murray Kinsella on this week’s The42 Rugby Weekly to analyse in depth what went wrong against England, discuss the rest of the Six Nations and look at the Ireland U20s’ win over the English, plus a mixed weekend for the Ireland Women 15s and 7s teams.
Murray also dialled up Stephen Ferris to hear about climbing Kilimanjaro in aid of a great cause.
For all of that and more, check out this week’s The42 Rugby Weekly on iTunes, Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts.
Following a heartbreaking Six Nations opening defeat to England, Joe Schmidt will look to regroup against a dangerous Scotland side. This week, Murray Kinsella and Gavan Casey are joined by Bernard Jackman to assess the damage of last weekend and look ahead to the clash in Murrayfield:
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