When you think of Scotland and Ireland you probably think of two Celtic nations that have nothing but love for each other, but that has not always true on the rugby pitch in recent years.
You only have to watch a match between a team from Scotland and one from Ireland (think Glasgow v Munster) to see that there is no love lost between the two nations.
A Comical Incident
At the end of 2020, Racing92 full-back, Simon Zebo, spoke about all the stick that he got when he was playing for Munster and his teammates found out that he follows Ryan Wilson on Instagram. Zebo was told in no uncertain terms that he should think about unfollowing the Scottish back row.
It is well known many of the Munster players do not like Wilson, and this is something that Wilson loves to revel in. This is just one of many incidents that show that players from both teams do not get on that well.
This Makes for Great Rugby
The fact that there are players on one side that dislike players from the other side is great for us rugby fans, as it adds extra spice as they attempt to get one over on their rivals. During an Ireland and Scotland match, you should never see any of the players on the field shirk a tackle. When either team wins a penalty in the scrum, you will see them celebrate with gusto as if they have all just combined to score the best try ever seen.
Scotland against Ireland is always a great match to watch, but you can make things that little bit more interesting by placing a bet or two on the match. There are many different rugby markets that you can bet on to spice up a game: such as the match winner, which team will score the first try, whether a certain player will score, and the number of points that will be scored in a game.
There are many great betting sites available that allow you to bet on plenty of different rugby outcomes. When it comes to finding the best rugby betting sites, take a look at betinireland.ie which specialises as a rugby betting comparison site. They have a team of sporting boffins that can help you to pick a quality sports betting site – no average bookies to be found, should you opt to register with one that they recommend.
Scotland Often Give Ireland a Helping Hand
Unfortunately, us Scots have been quite friendly to our fellow Celts over the last few years and they have had plenty to rub in our faces. For example, in 2019 Six Nations, Ireland had just been pumped by England in the first round and came to Murrayfield needing a win to get their campaign back on track. Scotland gifted Conor Murray an early try and went on to lose the game.
Before the 2019 World Cup, Ireland got another pasting from England and needed a confidence boost at the World Cup. Once again, Scotland helped them out by giving them three tries in 25 minutes. The World Cup was considered a failure for both Scotland and Ireland, and at the start of the 2020 Six Nations, Ireland were rebuilding after the Joe Schmidt era. Scotland were chasing a rare win in Dublin but then in typical fashion let the hosts out of jail thanks to goal line fumble from Stuart Hogg. Hoggy celebrating a try he didn’t score may not have endeared him to the Ireland fans watching though it’s fair to say he’s matured a lot in recent years.
The Autumn Cup rolled around, and Ireland were in need of yet another shot in the arm after yet another dismal loss to England and a poor showing against Georgia. Andy Farrell, Ireland’s coach, was already under severe pressure and knew that a loss could cost him his job. However, he had nothing to fear as Scottish indiscipline let Ireland walk away with the game.
Scotland v Ireland 2021 6 Nations
The next time these two sides will meet is on the 14th of March 2021 in the 6 Nations. This will be the fourth round of the tournament for Ireland but only the third match for Scotland after France were forced to postpone, which makes it even harder to judge who will be in with a chance of lifting the trophy the following weekend. With two losses, Ireland like they are out of contention which is a strange situation for them.
Given the fact that Ireland have beaten Scotland in the last five matches that they have played, and the fact that from the last 27 matches between the two sides Scotland have won just six times, the bookies are obviously going to have Ireland as favourites even at BT Murrayfield to make it six in a row. Scotland were a little too helpful to Wales but after the game against England have the undoubted class to put this Irish side away.
So, who do we think will win? Well, as Scotland fans, our hearts are obviously telling us that Scotland squad will get the monkey off our backs and win for the first time in five matches against the Irish, by 7.
But not if it gets too feisty.
Elements of this post have been paid for by our sponsors. Please gamble responsibly.
14 Responses
There shouldn’t be any love for Ireland. They hate us and raise their game to keep us in our place. Same as Wales.
Time to show them.
International rugby is a professional sport..players go out towin every game if they can.Most international rugby teams are made up of a significant number of players who were not born in the country and have little or no connection with the country they play for. So I don’t think the
question of Irish or Welsh players hating Scotland or raising their game exists.. all professional try to win every game ..Do the South Africans playing for Scotland hate those playing for Ireland or vice versa?? If you watch pro 12 games you will see them seeking out each other to speak after the match..doesn’t look like hate to me.
Agree. Hatred is too strong a word. A steadily increasing and edgy rivalry? Yes indeed, and nothing really wrong with that.
I don’t hate Ireland at all, but I really want to beat them for the first time since 2017.
Is a quick hook difficult or easy?
Elements of this post have been paid for by our sponsors. Please gamble responsibly. I mean yeah the article was appalling.
Personally have no issues with this at all, but not sure promoting gambling (masquerading as a normal post) is consistent with the virtuous stance displayed on other issues, when this may actually impact some of your readers. Just saying if you are going to talk the talk.
Agreed. Not up to the usual high standard of writing or content.
Hi guys thanks for the feedback. As hopefully you can see we do very few sponsored posts like this but welcome any thoughts on how it could be flagged so you can avoid reading such posts in future if they are not of interest.
Just do not do gambling ones would be the safe and responsible option, must be plenty of other stuff to be sponsored by.
I’d suggest to just put it in brackets in the title (sponsored post). Advertisements have to be labelled as such in printed media, I know it’s not the same with bloggers and influencers but it is probably best practice. The fact you’ve allowed it on your site should be enough of an endorsement for your sponsors.
I don’t particularly like ads for gambling but don’t agree it’s analogous to the other ethical positions you’ve taken. If it’s not necessary it’d be better if you avoided though.
Hi all. Appreciate the feedback. I’ve moderated a few comments that stepped over the line on this. From podcast perspective we primarily have the promotions and ads to cover the costs. With equipment, broadcast and hosting it costs to keep it running. The “patreon” was introduced to cover the costs of broadcasting live and we wanted to give something extra back to people who contributed in the form of extra content.
Sandy has stepped back from doing the podcast and now has his own blog but may contribute here in future.
How did my comment step over the line?
Hi Scrummo. Apologies yours got caught accidentally when I was cleaning up the others. Having checked it’s a repetition of points already made so whilst we’re happy to have dissent we don’t want that getting out of control.
See Rory’s comment above about future of these posts
I have no issue with the article being sponsored by bookmakers. It should probably be flagged at the start of the article and have the paragraph about the sponsor at the end, once you’ve piques people’s interest (or not).
The problem is the article chops and changes between subjects as if it was written by several people who didn’t know what the others were writing. If you’re going to have a theme (for example, who are the favourites and have the favourites always won in the past) then stick to it. And if it’s sponsored by gambling websites why not put the odds in the article? It would be a much more interesting article with titbits like “the bookies only had Ireland by 3-5 points in the RWC 2019” or “you could have bet against the bookies who thought there would be 4-5 tries in the game in Dublin in 2020, and maybe compensated (a little bit) with Hoggy dropping the ball over the line”.
Thanks for the feedback all.
Such promotional posts are usually kept to a minimum on here (compared to the number of requests we receive) and allow us to contribute to the annual running costs of the site, which in turn frees up more of the Ad revenue to distribute to the writers who otherwise give up their time.
Please do check the Category the post is marked under at the top of its own page, all such posts are listed under “Promotional”. We will endeavour to make clear sponsored posts from the outset in future, though as hopefully you have noticed they do not come around all that often.
We do apologise for any consternation this has caused to any of you who have had to deal with gambling related issues and will take steps so you can avoid it in future should we decide to run such a sponsored post again.
I’ll close off comments for this now.