Crowning glory sealed by Ireland
IRELAND............................26 SCOTLAND.........................5
IRELAND kept alive dreams of Guinness Six Nations glory by clinching the Triple Crown with a convincing bonus-point victory over Scotland in Dublin.
Andy Farrell’s men threw down the gauntlet for Grand Slam-chasing France, who were playing later last night, by moving three points clear at the top of the standings courtesy of tries from Dan Sheehan, Cian Healy, Josh Van Der Flier and Conor Murray.
Captain Johnny Sexton successfully converted three of the four scores to help Ireland end an 18-year wait to secure silverware on home soil.
Scotland had prevented Ireland winning the Triple
Crown at Croke Park back in 2010 - their last victory in Dublin.
But Gregor Townsend’s visitors never seriously threatened to mastermind an upset and Pierre Schoeman’s first-half score was scant consolation as their miserable run in this fixture continued on a chastening evening.
Scotland’s hopes of springing a surprise were not helped by Finn Russell, Ali Price and captain Stuart Hogg being among six players disciplined for breaching team protocols by visiting a bar following last weekend’s win over Italy.
With influential fly-half Russell dropped the bench, the away side began relatively brightly in a frantic opening quarter before Irish hooker Sheehan burrowed over in the 17th minute to calm home nerves.
Veteran prop Healy became the second member of the Irish front row to cross, bulldozing through the Scottish defence to claim his 10th Test try.
South Africa-born prop Schoeman went over for Scotland and then a stunning last-ditch tackle from Hugo Keenan denied Hogg a certain score in the right corner.
Ireland restored their two-try advantage with an hour played when Van Der Flier exploited a gap to capitalise on a spell of dominance and break Scottish resistance.
Ireland pushed hard for the bonus point.
They looked set to be denied but, after Scotland replacement scrum-half Ben White was sinbinned for a deliberate knock on, Murray touched down his country’s 24th try of the competition to the delight of the majority inside the Aviva.
Sexton missed the resultant kick to ruin his perfect record. Yet he cared little as he lifted silverware for the first time as skipper.