Home dominance could end today, with three away victories a possibility

Commentary Allan Massie

It didn’t feel like a 20-point defeat. There was, I think, general agreement about this. Nevertheless the score that will stand in the records is Ireland 28, Scotland 8, and, unless we beat Italy in Rome today, we’ll have gone another season without winning an away game in the Six Nations. Of course, neither have France nor Wales, though France have a chance to do so in Cardiff this evening. Home dominance has been a feature of the tournament, no away wins being recorded in the last three rounds. This may change today.

We go to Italy in reasonable expectation of victory. Failure to win would make a mockery of the quality of rugby we have played at Murrayfield, and indeed even in Dublin. Gregor Townsend has made five changes in the starting XV, and these indicate how much this Scotland squad now looks like a club. By that I mean that nobody is surprised if Glasgow or Edinburgh, or indeed Leinster or Munster, change a third of the starting side from one week to the next; it doesn’t mean that players are dropped – in the usual sense of that word. Likewise with the difference between Scotland in Dublin and Scotland today.

Italy in Rome have always been a tough proposition for us, and may well be so again today. They’ve had a curious season. They have, of course, lost all four matches, but they have scored nine tries in them, and this is two more than we have scored, even though everyone has, quite rightly, been praising the enterprise and attacking