OUT OF the championship and on the back of three straight defeats, the Scottish rugby fans travel to Dublin with little expectation.
They did likewise two years ago. Having lost ignominiously to Italy, Scotland were given no chance against an Ireland team chasing a fifth Triple Crown in seven years.
Ireland played terribly on their last international in Croke Park when man-of-the-match Dan Parks landed a last minute penalty to win 23-20, ensuring Scotland avoided the wooden spoon.
It was Scotland’s first victory in Dublin in the Six Nations. The previous victory had been in 1998.
Despite having lost their previous three matches to England, Wales and France respectively, the Scottish fans will still be here en masse.
Rugby weekends, especially the trips to Dublin, are always about a lot more than the rugby. Comradeship washed down with lashings of pints is at least as compelling a reason.
Scottish fans can hardly be missed, with the majority of them wearing tartan skirts.
A group of 11 Scottish fans from Edinburgh and Aberdeen teamed their tartan with garish paisley shirts so loud that motorists honked at them in the street.
One of them, Stewart Fyne from Edinburgh, has been to every Ireland v Scotland match in Dublin since he left school in the mid-1990s.
He is travelling over with friends from Edinburgh Academicals, the second oldest rugby club in the world, and another group of university friends from Aberdeen who also play rugby in their spare time.
“We’re always up for a bit of craic here. It’s always the best trip,” he said, echoing what appears to be a common sentiment among rugby fans.
He believes the Scottish team is making progress despite having won only one RBS Six Nations game since their victory in Dublin and some of the younger players are showing promise.
“There’s always next year, but that seems to be an ongoing thing,” he jokes.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys coming through and Andy Robinson [coach] has finally got it in him that he is going to be blooding these new guys. It is frustrating from a Scotland point of view, but we’ve got as good a chance as any with this game.”
For Ronnie Girvan it is his 12th successive trip to Dublin stretching back to 1990 when Scotland won the Grand Slam – an eternity ago in rugby terms.
“If we went anywhere on the basis that Scotland were going to win, we’d never go anywhere,” he said.
He and five friends have travelled over from Paisley in central Scotland for the match. They are wearing tartan skirts teamed with sporrans in the shape of a teddy bear.
“The law in Scotland was that you could not take drink into the ground,” he recalled about his first game in Ireland 22 years ago.
“We thought the law was the same here so we bought these so we could fill them up with alcohol, but when we got to Lansdowne Road they were bringing in big crates.”
Ireland are 1/4 favourites with Scotland at 11/4 with most bookmakers. Ireland has an outside chance of winning the championship; Scotland will hope, once again, to avoid the wooden spoon.
