What they said

Scotland Head Coach Gregor Townsend said: 

“The players are very much aligned with us with where we can improve. There’s no better match than Ireland away to give back and show who we are.

“This weekend is a real challenge for us.  We’re playing for a lot of things, we’re playing for a trophy, we’re playing for ourselves to show that we have improved, we’re playing for our supporters and we’re playing for James (Robson). We want to finish his career with our best performance of the season”.

The teams

The stats

• Scotland’s Duhan van der Merwe is the top try scorer in this year’s Guinness Men’s Six Nations (5) and needs just one more to equal Stuart Hogg (27) as Scotland’s top try scorer in men’s Test rugby (26 currently).
• Ireland (533) and Scotland (511) are the only teams to have made 500+ carries in this year’s Guinness Men’s Six Nations, ranking first and second respectively for carry metres as a result (Ireland- 3085, Scotland- 2916).
• Ireland (3.2) and Scotland (2.9) have scored more points per 22 entry than any other side in this year’s Guinness Men’s Six Nations.