Mick Galwey: “Andy Farrell and his Triple Crown-winning Irish team are on the way up now”

It wasn’t Ireland’s most fluid performance against Scotland at the Aviva yesterday.

But on the other hand, there’s never much fluid against Scotland in rugby.

They spoil, they ennoble, they ask you questions – and while Ireland answered most, Scotland stayed in the game long enough to be ready to exploit any Irish stupidity.

But it’s a sign of maturity in this side that Ireland never looked nervous yesterday.

After Ireland had the first try of the game, the victory that followed was inevitable.

We’ve never really rooted our visitors in the game. And they could usually be counted on to concede the occasional penalty when we allowed time and space against Scotland.

As always when it comes to Ireland referee Wayne Barnes did us a disservice.

Iain Henderson takes a forearm in the jaw and there is no card of any suit. A tackle to the face should now be red.

Later, Peter O’Mahony was clearly attacked by a Scottish player as he lifted both feet off the ground.

According to the rules, this is at least one yellow card, not a shown card.

And in the end, Scotland’s sub Ben White gets a yellow card for playing the ball on purpose!

Come on when we are concerned about the welfare of the players when big men clash in Test rugby there is no comparison between these three incidents.

Ireland will be happy to have delivered the result under some pressure.

There’s a clear squad depth there now, even with players like our key pillar Andrew Porter injured.

Also yesterday we had some problems with the crowds – and that needs to be fixed before we go to New Zealand in the summer.

They don’t want to play the All Blacks with a dodgy set piece, they’ll enjoy it.

Now that’s the next challenge for Andy Farrell and his coaching staff to go to the land of the long white cloud and win a friendly there later this year.

We’ve beaten them in Chicago and twice in Dublin, but we’ve never made it on their field.

But it’s what a team has to do if they’re serious about making a difference at the World Cup.

England famously went to New Zealand in 2002, the year they won the World Cup, and won a series there.

That’s the level you have to operate at if good things are to happen at the World Cup.

And then the challenge is to beat the South Africans when they come to Dublin in November for the autumn internationals as world champions.

It’s a never-ending cycle of striving to improve. But not so much that we couldn’t enjoy winning the Triple Crown for just the 12th time in our history.

Yes, we should have bigger goals in mind, but let’s not forget the little ones that need to be secured along the way.

What did I like about Ireland yesterday? Well, there was the fast running and willingness to attack quickly from Jamison Gibson-Park at scrimmage half-time when we got a penalty.

He was always looking for the gap and he was always trying to get the ball into the hands of James Lowe and Mack Hansen on the wings and Hugo Keenan at full-back.

There was a pace and movement to Ireland that was at times a joy given the opportunity to show off their stuff.

In the field, number 2 Dan Sheehan was a deserved man of the match.

With him and Ronan Kelleher battling for the jersey, we’ve been fair at the Hooker for a decade.

Tadhg Beirne has a mountain of work to do, as always, and Caelan Doris impresses every time I see him in action.

And Josh van der Flier was once again excellent with the offensive flanker.

At the risk of sounding like a record breaking, Lions coach Warren Gatland made a mad decision not to bring Van de Flier to South Africa last summer.

He would have shone on the tour and probably played in the Tests.

Of course, Van der Flier’s omission wasn’t the only ‘stupid’ selection decision made at the time.

I like the way all of our substitutions came in and made some sort of impact against Scotland.

You need that in every match these days.

When it becomes increasingly difficult for players to go all the way in international rugby in 80 minutes, the subs need to come and do the business to finish the competition

Scotland will be disappointed with some aspects of their game yesterday.

Also in the Six Nations 2022 they let their discipline down when they gave away stupid penalties.

Penalties Ireland have used to push Scotland back towards their own try line all along.

Ireland scorned a couple of shootable penalties during the game.

But it was clear that the bonus point was very strong in Ireland’s imagination ahead of this game.

We wanted tries, not three-point penalties, and although it wasn’t until the 80th minute that Conor Murray scored for the lads in green, we can only see that game and that win as a job well done from our point of view.

It is now forward and upward. We hope!