David Corkery on rugby: This is now the greatest professional team Ireland ever produced

Not quite a Six Nations classic, but Ireland are now the only team left in this year’s championship with a chance to achieve a Grand Slam.

With England unexpectedly overpowering the French on Saturday, and Wales and Italy having lost on the opening weekend of the competition, Ireland are now the only side who can go all the way.

Before this game started Scotland had lost 10 games on the bounce to Ireland, but they felt that this tie offered them the perfect opportunity to set the record straight. 

Having played really well in their Autumn internationals and outclassing the spirited Italians last weekend, confidence was riding high in the Scottish camp and Gregor Townsend was fully convinced that this was going to be Scotland’s day.

Unfortunately, for him and fortunately for us, this was not to be the case and Scotland will now have to wait yet another year before they get a fresh opportunity to reset the clock.

Completely overpowering their hosts in the opening exchanges you would easily be forgiven for thinking that it was Ireland who had the greater need to win this game as the men in green completely dominated proceedings.

Ireland's first try came courtesy of Calvin Nash who replaced the injured Mat Hansen.  After some powerful plays by the Irish forwards, the ball went from Gibson Park to Prendergast who then threw a sublime 20-yard pass to Nash who had all the time in the world to cross Scotland’s try line for the first of Ireland’s four tries.

A couple of minutes later the game was held up due to a collision between Scotland’s Finn Russell and Darcy Graham. Both players were removed from the field and neither returned. 

Losing one player this early in the game is bad enough, but to lose two was disastrous for Scotland and it had a major impact how they went about their business.

Russell, a once-in-a-lifetime player, was the one individual that Townsend would not have wanted to see leave the pitch. You just knew that his departure was a blow to Scotland's confidence.

CRUMBLED

At this point, Scotland looked a complete mess and were playing like a side that were just thrown together 10 minutes beforehand. Passing and kicking with no purpose or direction it wasn’t long before the Scottish defence crumbled and Ireland dotted down again. 

The only question was the margin at this stage.

It took until the 41st minute for Scotland to show any kind of control in what they were doing and as a result they managed to give themselves a glimmer of hope. Despite starting the second half strongly and reducing the deficit to just six points as soon as Ireland started unloading their bench the Scottish challenge soon fell wayward again and James Lowe was the next to add his name to the try scorers.

Scotland as only Scotland can do never really gave up the fight but the final nail in the coffin came when substitute Jack Conan helped himself to his second try in consecutive weeks. 

This gave Ireland their second try-scoring bonus point of the tournament and it is really looking like they are now going to be the first side in Six Nations history to win the championship for three years in a row.

It seems crazy but in many respects, the players coming off the bench for Ireland were nearly stronger than the ones they were replacing and to think that this squad is still without the services of Tadhg Furlong and Joe McCarthy is just crazy.

GREATEST

The only worrying aspect of Furlong and McCarthy returning is that they are two more Leinster players, but it’s not their fault that they just happen to be playing for Ireland's greatest professional team.

The selection of Sam Prendergast over Jack Crowley for this game had many debating the call, but from what we saw on Saturday, I do believe that Prendergast has now put himself in the driving seat.

At times it looks as if the 21-year-old is just out for a stroll in the park because of the calmness he displays in his persona. 

The only thing he has to prove now at this point, is can he guide the team he guides to victory when their backs are to the wall and the clock is in the red.

Next is a rest week for all teams in this competition and after that, we travel to Cardiff to play against a Welsh side that suffering immensely from years of neglect.