After that historic first win in Italy, Scotland’s women take on Ireland in Belfast on Saturday with a huge prize at stake, namely qualification for the 2025 World Cup. I can’t make it to the Kingspan Stadium but I will be glued to the television screen and willing them on to victory.
Martin Hannan: Rugby players are workers - and they should be treated as such.
Just when you think there’s nothing that the rugby authorities can do any more that would truly surprise you, along comes the revelation that there has been an agreement in principle between the major leagues north and south of the Equator to begin a world club championship in 2028.
Martin Hannan: Scottish women’s rugby is enjoying a bit of a boom period.
Martin Hannan: Don't be shocked if this Scotland side pulls off France shock.
In the London Marathon next month there will be hundreds running to raise money for cancer-related charities. Paul Moultrie of Troon will be one of them, except that he is quite different from most participants because he is running WITH cancer.
Lady Luck is a fickle mistress. Just when you need a couple of breaks to go your way, they go against you and your goose is well and truly cooked. In Scotland’s case, served with all the tasteless trimmings and a big dod of hubris sauce.
If it wasn’t for a duff decision by a TMO against France and a piece of unforgivable indiscipline by Pierre Schoeman in Rome, Scotland would be going to Dublin this weekend with a real chance of winning the Guinness Six Nations Championship and the Grand Slam. Nobody saw that as a possibility at the start of the tournament, and, lo, it did not come to pass as the arithmetic says we can’t win the title.
Martin Hannan: Scotland must be wary of Italy to keep Six Nations hopes alive.
Back in the 1960s, an Argentinian football manager named Helenio Herrera devised a defensive system called ‘catenaccio’, Italian for door bolt, which made his club, Inter Milan, the champions of Europe in consecutive seasons.
