Six Nations: Good old-fashioned Munster rugby, you cannae beat it. Whatever the terminology, Scotland knew it was coming, prepared themselves for it, but could do little to prevent it happening. As one suspected, the worst thing that happened the hapless Scots was the performance of the Irish pack in Rome. Scotland paid for that in spades on Saturday.
Paul O'Connell and the rest of the Irish forwards would have been fuming with themselves for their reluctance or inability to make the hard yards the previous weekend. Two travel days in a six-day turnaround did little to dim their resolve. The chance for redemption of sorts - well, providing a reminder of what they're about anyway - probably couldn't have come soon enough.
By his own enormous standards (the best lock in the game?) we've been waiting for a performance like this from O'Connell - dominant from the first restart, imposing at the line-outs, hard yards in contact - for a few weeks. The added responsibilities demanded this of him and he delivered, as you somehow sensed he would.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man and all that, although actually it was cometh the 40th minute, but that doesn't read so well. The pack had made the hard yards off a tap (and undignified slip) by Anthony Foley when O'Gara lined up O'Connell for a rumble at Dan Parks. No contest.
O'Connell still had Chris Cusiter, Hugo Southwell and then Gavin Kerr to carry over the line. No bother. It was ridiculous really. O'Connell had no right to score that try. But that's the force of will and strength of the man. It was surely the game's seminal moment, and you knew in your bones that there was only going to be one result after that.
It had, admittedly, merely rubberstamped the collective statement of intent over the previous 20 minutes. With O'Gara, typically, also putting to right the wrongs of his line-kicking last week, the remorseless maul, strangled the life out of the gamey but hopelessly outmuscled Scots, who had invited Ireland back into the game with a truckload of handling and kicking errors.
Chris Paterson's counter-attack, and the slowness of Ireland's chasers in following up and forming a tight-knit line, had seen Andy Craig provide the link for Southwell to score with a surprising turn of foot. This score, beating only one would-be tackle, was perhaps the limit of their range, albeit coming from just outside their own 22, but it gave the initially buoyant home side an ominous-looking eight-point buffer.
It sparked a horrible sense of déjà vu from Murrayfield visits in times past. We weren't to know it then, but Ireland were in no mood to let that happen. A turning point had been the penalty conceded by the ultra-physical Jason White - who had started the game running through Ronan O'Gara and would later do 'a Maggsy' on Maggs - when dragging Malcolm O'Kelly down from the air.
White's indiscretion wouldn't have been so bad had O'Gara not spiralled a 55-metre touchfinder to the corner. O'Connell called the lineout on himself, and the Scots timed their defensive hit to send him and the Irish pack back a few yards initially. But there was a controlled anger in the way Ireland patiently regrouped through constant resetting and driving before O'Kelly touched down.
On his big day how appropriate was that, and that O'Connell would follow it up with the second try? O'Kelly continued where he left off in Rome and rare is a Test match where two second rows are almost the dominant forces of the match. As individuals and a pairing, this was surely the benchmark for the remainder of the Six Nations' campaign. With the O'Connell-O'Kelly axis playing like this, talk of championships and slams is hardly idle.
If that needless concession of a penalty by White was the turning point, which seems a tad harsh on one of Scotland's few quality players - it merely suggests that the said point was going to be a case of when rather than if.
The inclusion of Johnny O'Connor was vindicated, the fearless little nugget from the West making his presence felt at the breakdown, winning a couple of balls he had no right to win - earning one three-pointer as a result - and hounding the Scottish wonder boy Chris Cusiter into the Murrayfield dirt.
But how the watching Denis Leamy must have wished his fellow forwards had played with that fervour in Rome.
Any potential Six Nations champions (or Slam-chasers) cannot be dependant upon one or two individuals, even the world's best centre and team talisman or last season's player of the tournament. Nor can they do it with one gameplan. Ireland will have returned from Edinburgh having reminded themselves that there's more to them than meets the eye.
Shane Horgan's value in the autumn and here is understated but immense, making him a prime Lions candidate, while Maggs hounded his prey and either bearhugged or pummelled them into the ground.
His reading of Alastair Hogg's pick up from a defensive scrum and subsequent hit was tremendous, forcing the spillage from which O'Gara took a return off the deck by Horgan to feed Denis Hickie. One chance, one try.
Although the Scottish maul sparked a mini-revival when cleverly working a blindside try for Jon Petrie which had Willie Anderson and Leinster of the last few years written all over it, forward pressure and an almost non-existent Scottish blindside defence had seen O'Kelly give a deft transfer for John Hayes to score in the corner. Deadly from two yards.
Horgan's pick-up, run and well-timed pass off another Scottish spillage (Gordon Bulloch knocking on a dreadful pass from the hopeless and hapless Dan Parks) laid on Gavin Duffy's first Test try on the proverbial platter, the other one-time Connacht product gleefully muddying his clean kit. That was rubbing Scotland's noses in it.
Scoring sequence: 8 mins: Paterson pen, 3-0; 12: Southwell try, 8-0; 18: O'Gara pen, 8-3; 22: O'Kelly try, O'Gara con, 8-10; 36: O'Gara pen, 8-13; 39: O'Connell try, 8-18; Half-time 8-18; 44: Hickie try, O'Gara con, 8-25; 47: O'Gara pen, 8-28; 58: Petrie try, 13-28; 72: Hayes try 13-33; 80: Duffy try, Humphreys con 13-40.
SCOTLAND: C Paterson (Edinburgh); S Danielli (The Borders), A Craig (Glasgow), H Southwell (Edinburgh), S Lamont (Glasgow); D Parks (Glasgow), C Cusiter (The Borders); T Smith (Northampton), G Bulloch (Glasgow, cap), G Kerr (Leeds Tykes), S Grimes (Newcastle Falcons), S Murray (Edinburgh Rugby), J White (Sale Sharks), J Petrie (Glasgow), A Hogg (Edinburgh Rugby). Replacements: M Blair (Edinburgh Rugby) for Cusiter (7-17 mins and 72 mins), B Douglas (The Borders) for Kerr, N Hines (Edinburgh Rugby) for Murray (all 72 mins). Not used: R Russell (London Irish), J Dunbar (Leeds Tykes), G Ross (Leeds Tykes), B Hinshelwood (Worcester Warriors).
IRELAND: G Murphy (Leicester Tigers); G Dempsey (Leinster), S Horgan (Leinster), K Maggs (Ulster), D Hickie (Leinster); R O'Gara (Munster), P Stringer (Munster); R Corrigan (Leinster), S Byrne (Leinster), J Hayes (Munster), M O'Kelly (Leinster), P O'Connell (Munster, capt), S Easterby (Llanelli Scarlets), J O'Connor (Wasps), A Foley (Munster). Replacements: E Miller (Leinster) for O'Connor (67 mins), F Sheahan (Munster) for Byrne, M Horan (Munster) for Corrigan (both 73 mins), D O'Callaghan (Munster) for O'Kelly, G Easterby (Leinster) for Stringer, G Duffy (Harlequins) for Hickie, D Humphreys (Ulster) for O'Gara (all 76 mins).
Referee: Joel Jutge (France).
