14 March 2026; Jamie Osborne of Ireland scores his side’s first try during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and Scotland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
Bizarrely we looked stretched out wide despite adding more pace in the backs. However, we.absolutely smashed Scotland up front. Really happy with how we’ve progressed over the last four weeks and we were missing so many players.
We looked far better coached today whereas Scotland lost their heads a few times
Louis Hoffman
Defence won us that game despite the score, almost nullified totally a great Scottish backline
Gavin Hegarty
When, in the history of any tournament, has each team come out happy?
France: winners
Ireland: good tournament and hugely improved after a disaster start. Triple crown
Scotland: retain Calcutta cup, 3/5 a good return
Italy: beat England for the first time. 2/5 a good return
England: salvaged a lot of pride in their loss to France and showed a turn
Wales: finished bottom but showed they are coming back to what world rugby needs
Just my Sunday morning thoughts!
Rugby was the real winner yesterday
Gerald Williamson
The Irish defense when under pressure from Scottish attacks performed exceptionally well. The subs bench made quite an impact particularly Darragh Murray’.
Bernie Cunningham
Ireland just a grt performance, Scotland just couldn’t handle Ireland in all aspects of the game today. COYBIG
Christy O’Connor
Brilliant performance, when will the Scots learn not to give us fuel before our games (Darcy Graham Ireland are there for the taking) 🤣
6 March 2026; Jacob Stockdale of Ireland scores his side’s first try during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and Wales at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
Well done Wales, you fought well and gave us a hard game – Congratulations Ireland 🇮🇪
Lorraine Matthews
Always rooting for Ireland, but can we stop for a moment to appreciate the majestic scene that was Carre’s try? That hunk of human was motoring!!
Craig Grehan
If anyone was thinking that game was gonna be a thrashing they haven’t been watching this 6 nations.
Ireland didn’t play bad just sloppy, trying to force keeping the ball alive at times. But enough to get away with the win.
Great to see stockdale again claim his stake. Conan played unreal and deserved the motm. Wales weren’t bad. In fact they were very very good.
That said, how is it nobody seems to notice looseheads boring in on our tightheads?
But if Porter was on he’d be pinged every time?
Craig Boyd
Probably sums up where we are. Not the brilliant team we thought we were when beating England and not as bad as people thought we were after the France and Italy games. It’s a toss of a coin predicting the result against Scotland
Cormac Mannion
Someone in the media commented this week that it was probably the biggest backline we had ever fielded. However, if you’re going to kick contestable kicks you need more than one of your back three capable of actually challenging for the kicks.
Some of our backline had all the turning ability and agility of an oil tanker.
Despite that, Wales are becoming increasingly tough to break down and are definitely improving.
Dickson had another of his special nights. Why we have had to suffer him twice in the tournament is beyond me
Eamon Saunders
I thought we got away with one but hung In There for a win
John Kehoe
Versus France Ireland kicked far too much ball away; today they didn’t strategically kick any way near enough
Chris McDonnell
We missed the likes of Tommy O’Brien or Mac Hanson to add some energy to the backline. Osbourne joined the line once and scored, frawley added a different picture when he came on.
David Ryle
I saw people from a certain province commenting that stockdale can’t catch a high ball. Caught a few today.
Christy O’Connor
We went from being a team that couldn’t win a lineout but we are now a team that can’t scrum. It needs to be sorted before the world cup
IRELAND : 15 Jamie Osborne 14 Robert Baloucoune 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Stuart McCloskey 11 Jacob Stockdale 10 Jack Crowley 9 Jamison Gibson‑Park 1 Tom O’Toole 2 Rónan Kelleher 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 James Ryan 5 Tadhg Beirne 6 Jack Conan 7 Nick Timoney 8 Caelan Doris (c) 16 Tom Stewart 17 Michael Milne 18 Thomas Clarkson 19 Joe McCarthy 20 Josh van der Flier 21 Nathan Doak 22 Tom Farrell 23 Ciaran Frawley
WALES : 15 Louis Rees‑Zammit 14 Ellis Mee 13 Eddie James 12 Joe Hawkins 11 Josh Adams 10 Dan Edwards 9 Tomos Williams 1 Rhys Carre 2 Dewi Lake (c) 3 Tomas Francis 4 Dafydd Jenkins 5 Ben Carter 6 Alex Mann 7 James Botham 8 Aaron Wainwright 16 Ryan Elias 17 Nicky Smith 18 Archie Griffin 19 Adam Beard 20 Olly Cracknell 21 Kieran Hardy 22 Jarrod Evans 23 Louie Hennessey
We’ve already looked back at the French and English contests from the 2018 Slam so it’s only right and proper that we keep that going ahead of the visit of the Welsh to Dublin too. A couple of starters from 8 years ago are wearing the exact same numbers on Friday…can you spot them?
Wales : 15. Leigh Halfpenny 14 Liam Williams 13 Scott Williams 12 Hadleigh Parkes 11 Steff Evans 10 Dan Biggar 9 Gareth Davies
1 Rob Evans 2 Ken Owens 3 Samson Lee 4 Cory Hill 5 Alun Wyn Jones > CAPT 6 Aaron Shingler 7 Josh Navidi 8 Ross Moriarty
Replacements: 16 Elliot Dee 17 Wyn Jones 18 Tomas Francis 19 Bradley Davies 20 Justin Tipuric 21 Aled Davies 22 Gareth Anscombe 23 George North.
Natwest Six Nations 2018 – Round 3
Saturday, February 24, 2018
KO 2:15pm
Aviva Stadium
Referee – Glen Jackson (New Zealand)
Assistant 1 – Pascal Gauzere (France)
Assistant 2 – Matthew Carley (England)
TMO – Rowan Kitt (England)
Click here if you’d like to read my preview, but for the record my prediction was for an Ireland win by 1 to 3 pts…
Since we cut from two guests on the wrap pods to one, having the same guest two out of three weeks has been a rarity but that’s how things turned out for the Cardiff pod and since Conor Cronin also chipped in to the 500th episode it means he earned three caps in as many weeks which I doubt has ever happened.
Unfortunately that one dull fact is more interesting than anything that actually happened in the URC match at Cardiff Arms Park but still Conor did a great job analysing what went wrong; I reckon it’s worth a listen if you missed it, click here to do so.
RUGBY’S ASHES
An “identical exhibition trophy” is set to be used for the remainder of the championship
Not really a crazy story I suppose, fires happen, but I have to say I’m intrigued by the article simply saying “The fire, reported to have taken place in Ireland, led to no injuries…”.
Eh, maybe since you’re the Irish national broadcaster you might want to follow up on that? Where in Ireland? How did the fire start? To be fair if those details WERE in the article I probably wouldn’t pay them much mind, but they are still conspicuous by their absence and it leaves me an itch that needs scratching.
Plus all the talk of a new trophy being “forged” gave our WhatsApp group the perfect opportunity to run a host of Tolkien themed memes…
Shocking performance. Weather aside, it was just dire. Very tough run in to the season now with Glasgow, Ulster and Benetton away to come. In years gone by its been these games during international breaks that have defined the depth and success of the squad. Sad to see how poor that was.
Dave Murray
Even taking into the account the rain, we looked very sluggish and our style of play has noticeably regressed the last year or so. We haven’t played great at all this season but have picked up wins to get us in a decent position, can’t say I’m too confident of getting silverware but here’s hoping 🤞🤞🤞
Stuart Maher
Awful conditions. Torrential rain is hard enough to play in, but it becomes a slow grinding game as the mud slows everything down. Slows the ball, slows the players. Turns it into a forward crunch fest. There is no mud on a 4g pitch so the game stays fast, except the ball, now wet, instead of having mud to give a little grip, has greasy residue coming from the surface. Meaning a fast game with the slimiest of balls. Neither team could bring their normal play so I felt, from the start, it was going to be a coin flip game.
A few positives. Tector looks so good ball in hand. Really looks like someone who wants the extra few metres and will fight for it. Moloney looked very handy, and I thought, for his second game, Spicer did OK.
Chris McDonnell
We have 3 coaches stealing a living.
At least we didn’t pay to watch this. Really need to get Noel McNamara in right now before these coaches do any more damage.
Craig Grehan
Shite
Ok, maybe that’s harsh. But there was a lot of take aways. We looked sluggish (can’t be blaming lions fatigue for this). A fair bit of silly sloppy play that isn’t upto the standard we’ve come to expect.
Rudderless in attack in terms of how to exploit the opposition as if the game plan was “ah sure ya know yourself”.
Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.
Needless to say I’m not in a very good mood this morning, mostly because Leinster got beaten last night of course, but also because it was a really, really, truly awful game of rugby. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m not saying that due to sour grapes, it really was a long, arduous 80m watch although since Leinster got beaten, I’d say it did provide sufficient Friday evening viewing for the majority of those watching!
But that’s what wrap pods are for so I’ll try to put the frustration aside for the moment and leave it until Sunday to do the tortuous rewatch. No point in sharing a link to the preview this week, but to get a sense of how I was feeling before this match here is my latest spot on Dublin South FM…
Anyway, enough about all that. This time last week instead of doing this article I was sitting in the car recording my part of our 500th episode special. It was eventually an enjoyable experience, but not before I got through the process of downloading/editing/re-uploading which took literally hours longer than it should have. Do check it out if you missed it, you’ll find the YouTube version here.
Speaking of this Broken Play article, I see I missed the 1 year anniversary of it – the first edition was scribbled on February 9, 2025. That’s unusual for me as in general I’m good at keeping track of such things, but anyway I have to say I enjoy doing them and as long as I can drag myself out of bed at this ungodly hour on Saturdays I’ll keep it up for the foreseeable.
I just remembered there’s Super Rugby on, so it is now accompanying me and Chiefs v Crusaders isn’t a bad contest to have on in the background. Chiefs have just taken a 14-0 lead but we all know that means nothing in this comp, defences were shaky anyway but with a gagillion Law “trials” meant to “speed up the game” anything is possible.
This week I want to touch on a subject that is, well touchy. Last night’s disappointment for Leinster in Cardiff brought to an end an extremely enjoyable week on social media for me. Any big win for my team has me in a good mood, but England? In Twickenham? When we thought our chances were slim at best? Magical.
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 