The Scottish rugby team have been Ireland's whipping boys for the guts of two decades but this evening they have a "free hit" at a historically sickening upset.
On the rugby podcast this week, former Scottish scrum half Rory Lawson was heartened to learn that Ireland were treating this game as a last-16 tie, given our now infamous history of the jitters in World Cup knockouts.
It has become evident that there is considerable giddiness among our neighbours and rivals at the possibility of Ireland mucking up another World Cup quarter-final, such is their weariness at this long, long winning streak. If Andy Farrell's side somehow conspire to not even make the quarters, the laughter will be even louder.
Ireland were once loveable underdogs in the boot, bollock and bite era but are increasingly an object of resentment now that winning has become an ingrained habit.
Within the confines of the URC, in particular, Ireland, and especially Leinster, are despised overdogs.
Given our own fondness for 'What the foreign papers are saying' content, it is slightly surprising that our own output is now being eyed just as warily.
For instance, it's become apparent from perusing comments sections and the replies to social media output - including our own podcast - that South African fans now monitor Irish rugby content the way the CIA keeps tabs on the dark web.
Indeed, we're probably not far away from a circular being issued to Irish sports desks that all their rugby output should be written up on the understanding that the current South African director of rugby will see it at some point.
Meanwhile, it is the settled opinion of Welsh rugby's large band of Twitter addicts that Ireland hasn't won a game of rugby union without the ref's help since about 2001.
The Scottish rugby community isn't as loud or unignorable as their Welsh counterparts - given fitba's stranglehold on the sporting landscape over there - but you can't play a nation at a sport every year for a century and a half without collecting some grievances along the way.
Chief among them being the fact that this match could have been played in the shadow of the McGillycuddy Reeks but for the Scots perfidy in voting against the IRFU's 2023 bid. Philip Browne did at least credit the Scots for their forthrightness in insisting they would cast their vote solely on the basis of money, praise they could probably have done without. Clearly stung by the Celtic betrayal, Browne remarked that "when the chips are down, the only country that supports Ireland is England".
Of course, this called to mind an even older grievance, the aborted 1972 Five Nations, when Ireland had won in both Paris and London but were denied a shot at the Grand Slam after the Scots and Welsh cried off coming here due to security concerns.
Former Irish second rower Jean Kleyn, now back among his countrymen, observed at his press conference this week that there was "animosity" between Ireland and Scotland. Kleyn was possibly anxious to sow discord up here, so as to ward off the very faint possibility of a Celtic stitch up or a Braveheart-style alliance. The chances of this are exceptionally remote, though it has been played up in permutations posts largely for the purposes of trolling the easily riled South African fans.
Kleyn appears to have in mind the controversy that followed a Glasgow-Munster Champions Cup tie almost seven years ago, when it became apparent that the Scottish back-rowers were targeting Conor Murray's standing leg as he was launching box-kicks, an allegation which Ryan Wilson cheerfully admitted to later on.
Unlike our rivalry with Wales, the Ireland-Scotland match-up has never been tit for tat, and has instead been characterised by long arcs of dominance. The Scots dominated the fixture in the late Victorian era, when handlebar moustaches rather than hipster beards were all the rage and tries were worth the princely sum of zero points [they merely set up a penalty goal attempt].
Ireland dominated the match-up in the Pathé News era, which was interrupted by the Second World War, winning all bar two of the 18 games between 1935 and 1959. Jackie Kyle enjoyed an 100% record against his near neighbours from just across the water - played nine, won nine.
Scotland's most recent period of supremacy is in living memory to most of us, the 1990s, when the Irish rugby hierarchy's dogged commitment to keeping the game amateur still extended to the preparation of their senior team.
We are currently in the longest arc of the lot. After years of relentless gloom, the weather broke in Irish rugby in that Six Nations game against Scotland in 2000. In the 30 matches played between the teams since the millennium, the Scots have won six and two of those were World Cup warm-ups.
Judging by the underage grades, the cycle doesn't look like turning in the medium term. The Under-20 Six Nations game between Scotland and Ireland last March was only slightly less one-sided than the Masters v Pupils match in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. Nipping out to the toilet at any point usually meant missing at least one Irish try, if you were lucky.
Combined with the relentless Friday night pummelings in the RDS, it's understandable that our Celtic brothers have begun to tire of us.
The recently retired Stuart Hogg was the subject of one of Jim Hamilton's walk and talk interviews around the streetscapes of France. While he praised Ireland to the skies as a rugby team, Hoggie demurred when it was suggested to him that he might get on the Irish bandwagon for the knockouts, should the form guide hold up on Saturday evening. The Scottish great wants a Northern Hemisphere team to do the business but he wants that team to be France.
He was up front about the reason: "I think I only beat Ireland about twice in my career. I hated playing against them... I just got so frustrated playing against them, they were such a clever rugby side. So yeah, I'm probably a bit bitter that I've only beaten them a couple of times throughout the 14 years."
Hoggie's own bullishness during his playing days got Irish backs up and was the subject of some lampooning. Eddie O'Sullivan caught a wave of flak in Scottish rugby circles for branding them "deluded" after yet another defeat in Dublin in the Autumn Nations Cup game of winter 2020, which led to him issuing a qualified mea culpa on 'The Rugby Pod'.
Eddie's outburst came in the wake of a prolonged period where the build-up to every Ireland-Scotland match was accompanied by Hogg serenely proclaiming that world domination was at hand for the Scottish rugby team, provided they dot a few i's and cross a few t's.
Scotland were improving from a low base at the time and one sensed that all their talk was an attempt to will the new reality into being. Fast forward a few years and Scotland are now regular winners in the Six Nations championship. They've ended the losing habit of decades in Twickenham and backed it up with another victory this year. They downed France in Paris in memorable fashion in the 2021 campaign.
In the north, Ireland remain their consistent tormentors. Nearly all logic points to another Irish win. But from their perspective, this would be a most propitious time to break the cycle.
Listen to the RTÉ Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen to live commentary of Ireland v Scotland on Saturday on RTÉ Radio 1, or follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News app.
