Ireland<\/a> are in position after picking themselves off the floor in the wake being given a torrid time and losing 42-21 on opening day in France.<\/p>\nA furious coach has since dropped 10 of those who started that match, those escaping Paris Punishment being Jamie Osborne, Gary Ringrose, Stuart McCloskey, Caelan Doris (albeit taken away from no8 for a game) and Jeremy Loughman who succumbed to injury.<\/p>\n
The winners of today’s Aviva clash will have a chance of winning the Championship should England defeat France in Paris (for permutations see below),<\/p>\n
Scotland would be chasing a Grand Slam but for an opening day three-point defeat in Italy when they failed to handle a torrential storm and spurned over half-a-dozen kickable shot at goal.<\/p>\n
Here’s what you need to know about the Ireland-Scotland fixture:<\/p>\n
What: Six Nations, Round Five<\/p>\n
Where: Aviva Stadium, Dublin<\/p>\n
When: Saturday, March 14th, 2026<\/p>\n
What time is kick-off? 2.10pm<\/p>\n
Referee: Luke Pearce (England)<\/p>\n
Six Nations Table positions:<\/p>\n
1. France 16 pts (+79pts diff)<\/p>\n
2 Scotland 16 pts (+21 pts diff)<\/p>\n
3 Ireland 14 pts (+ +16 pts diff)<\/p>\n
Quotes corner<\/p>\n
ANDY FARRELL (Irish Coach): “Certainly room to do better. We\u2019ve had one really good performance, but we know that in Test match rugby it all doesn\u2019t go your way, you\u2019ve got to find a way as well and all the best teams have got a track record of doing that.<\/p>\n
“Three wins out of three, obviously getting over the disappointment of the one before that, but still room for improvement and putting ourselves in a position to see whether we can perform at our best when it really matters. I suppose that\u2019s a position that you want to test yourself and put yourself in.”<\/p>\n
GREGOR TOWNSEND (Scotland Coach): That performance (against France) was close to the best that we\u2019ve seen from this group and from probably any Scotland team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expectations might be there to repeat that performance in Dublin but what we want to see from it is, \u2018Are they physically ready?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen them at training this week, we\u2019ve done some contact work yesterday, and they\u2019re up for that challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
TITLE PERMUTATIONS should Ireland defeat Scotland<\/p>\n
If France beat England – Ireland cannot win the Championship<\/p>\n
If France draw with England:<\/p>\n
Any win with one more bonus point than France wins them the Championship<\/p>\n
A win with equal bonus points to France wins them the Championship if Scotland don’t get two losing bonus points, and Ireland overcome a 63-point points difference deficit<\/p>\n
If England beat France:<\/p>\n
A bonus point win over Scotland wins them the Championship<\/p>\n
A non-bonus point win wins them the Championship if neither Scotland or France get two losing bonus points, and if tied with France, Ireland overcome either 63-point points difference deficit with France<\/p>\n
Did you know? Ireland have beaten Scotland in each of their last 11 meetings<\/p>\n
Did you know? Scotland have never won a Six Nations title. Indeed, this is the first time they have ever been in contention on the last day.<\/p>\n
Betting odds: Ireland 1\/2 draw 20\/1 Scotland 9\/5<\/p>\n
Handicap: Ireland -5 points 1\/1<\/p>\n
Popular Bets: Dan Sheehan first try-scorer 9\/1, anytime try-scorer 1\/1; Munster to win to nil; Finn Russell to be Man of the Match 12\/1<\/p>\n
Ireland to win each half by 10+ points 17\/1; Ireland to win both halves, 1+ try scored in 1st 10 minutes, one yellow card in the match 11\/2<\/p>\n
Six Nations title winners: France 2\/9, Ireland 7\/1, Scotland 15\/2<\/p>\n
What TV channel is match on? Virgin Media, UTV<\/p>\n
LINE-UPS:<\/p>\n
Ireland: Jamie Osborne; Rob Baloucoune, Garry Ringrose, Stuart McCloskey, Tommy O’Brien; Jack Crowley, Jamison Gibson-Park; Tom O’Toole, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong; Joe McCarthy, Tadhg Beirne; Jack Conan, Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris (capt).<\/p>\n
Replacements: R\u00f3nan Kelleher, Michael Milne, Finlay Bealham, Darragh Murray, Nick Timoney, Craig Casey, Ciar\u00e1n Frawley, Bundee Aki<\/p>\n
Scotland: Blair Kinghorn; Darcy Graham, Huw Jones, Sione Tuipulotu, Kyle Steyn; Finn Russell, Ben White; Pierre Schoeman, George Turner, Zander Fagerson; Max Williamson, Grant Gilchrist; Matt Fagerson, Rory Darge, Jack Dempsey.<\/p>\n
Replacements: Ewan Ashman, Rory Sutherland, D’Arcy Rae, Alex Craig, Magnus Bradbury, George Horne, Kyle Rowe, Tom Jordan.<\/p>\n
Click here to sign up to our sport newsletter, bringing you the top stories and biggest headlines from Ireland and beyond<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Triple Crown decider and possible Championship clincher looks set to be a cracker Ireland Head Coach Andy Farrell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25747,1399,28581,95341,61,60,58215,43,157717,15551],"class_list":["post-345616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-farrell","tag-aviva-stadium","tag-caelan-doris","tag-gregor-townsend","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby-union-team","tag-news","tag-scotland-rugby-union-team","tag-six-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ireland](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/94164_2906726.jpg\")
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