March 10 : Scotland’s top try scorer Darcy Graham believes his side can beat Ireland away on Saturday to take rugby’s Triple Crown and give themselves a chance of a first Six Nations success.
Scotland travel to Dublin for their last fixture in this year’s competition, sharing top spot in the standings with France, who host England in Paris later the same evening.
Defending champions France and Scotland, who last won in 1999 when the competition was still the Five Nations, have 16 points, but the French have a vastly superior points difference, meaning Scotland will need to better their result against England.
“I think they’re there for the taking,” Graham said of the Irish, who have 14 points and are also still in contention.
“They’ve probably not been firing as well as they have in previous campaigns. They’re still a world-class team, and it’s a difficult place to go. I’ve never been there and won, and I can’t even remember the last time we won there. It’s been a long time. But our confidence is right up there. We’ll go there full guns blazing,” he told reporters.
Scotland started this year’s competition with a disappointing loss in Italy but have beaten England, Wales and France.
“We’ve built the confidence. Obviously, Italy put a downer on things, but if it had been a dry day, the game would have been totally different,” Graham said.
“I think we trust in our ability to go out there and do what we do. Obviously, we’ve not done things quite right on the day against Italy, but I feel like we’ve done that for the next few games. Belief is right up there.”
“Confidence is the highest I’ve ever had in a Scotland campaign,” he added.
Two tries for the diminutive winger in Saturday’s 50-40 win over France at Murrayfield took Graham’s total to 37, moving him ahead of Duhan van der Merwe as Scotland’s record try scorer.
“I’ve always caught Duhi, I’ve never gone past him, so it’s the first time I’ve gone past him and I’m buzzing,” Graham said.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Ed Osmond)
