Scotland 15-22 Ireland
Ireland got out of jail and escaped Scotland with a win to start off their women's Six Nations campaign.
On the back-foot for virtually all of the second half the scores were locked at 15-15 with the clock over 80 minutes and into the red.
The visitors to the Broadwood Stadium in Cumbernauld managed to work themselves into good field position for the first time in nearly half an hour.
Sensing that they had a chance of winning a game they should have been out of, Ireland ramped up the pressure and forced Scotland to cough up two penalties.
Having missed all of her kicks, out-half Nora Stapleton declined a shot at the post. For the first of these penalties Ireland opted for a tap-and-go and got over the line.
They were held up though and referee Aimee Barrett-Theron went back for an earlier penalty, which Stapleton kicked to touch.
Ireland retained possession from the line-out and rumbled back to the Scottish line. Quick ball was passed through the hands until it found Jenny Murphy running a hard line.
She crashed across the line under the posts. Stapleton added the extras to ensure a seven-point, four-try bonus point win that Ireland scarcely deserved.
Scotland haven’t won a test game since 2011 and haven’t beaten Ireland since 2007, during which time they’ve taken some big beatings, and despite a strong start they were under pressure in the first half.
Number 8 Jade Konkel, her nation’s only professional women’s rugby player, went over for the first of her two tries on the night after just five minutes and Sarah Law kicked the conversion.
From then on it was nearly all Ireland in the first half, though Tom Tierney’s team struggled to make it count. They went over the line four times, but were held up twice.
They knocked on twice right on the line too, so had to settle for tries through Sene Naoupu and Alison Miller, neither of which were converted.
Scotland got out into the Ireland 22 very rarely, but two of their visits resulted in another Konkel try and a Law penalty to give them a 15-10 lead at the break.
Scotland showed new-found confidence on the resumption and pressed Ireland back into their 22, but poor kicking and erratic refereeing meant they didn’t extend their lead.
Scrum half Law and out-half Helen Nelson both missed kicks at goal while Barrett-Theron penalised them in a promising position when no infraction took place, letting Ireland off the hook.
Ten minutes into the second half Lindsay Peat, the former Dublin footballer and Ireland soccer and basketball international, touched down from a line-out just minutes after Scottish back-row Lindsey Smith was shown a yellow card.
But this was the only meaningful attack that Ireland mounted in the ten minutes Scotland were down to 14 players.
In fact, they rarely threatened until the dying seconds. Ireland got out of jail and Scotland will certainly feel hard done by.
