\n<\/p>\n
Considering they started the Six Nations with a humbling 36-14 defeat by France in Paris, Ireland have done well to remain in the title hunt going into a fascinating climactic weekend. <\/b><\/p>\n
After losing to Les Bleus for the second year in a row, Ireland bounced back to beat Italy in Dublin, although their celebrations were muted after they failed to secure a bonus point. <\/p>\n
In the 42-21 away win over England, Ireland were at their devastating best in a performance that restored belief in the team’s potential. <\/p>\n
And while last week’s victory over Wales wasn’t quite as seismic, it leaves Andy Farrell’s side facing into a Super Saturday Triple Crown shootout with Scotland (14:10 GMT), who also enter the final weekend with hope of pipping France to the championship. <\/p>\n
Scotland have not won the Triple Crown since 1990 and last lifted the title in the final year of the Five Nations in 1999. <\/p>\n
To end both droughts, they must beat Ireland in Dublin for the first time since 2010 and snap an 11-match losing sequence against their rivals that includes two World Cup games.<\/p>\n
“It’s class,” Ireland attack coach Andrew Goodman said when asked about there being a “cup final” feel to this week’s build-up. <\/p>\n
“You come back into training together on Sunday night, Monday morning and you can feel the edge around the place. It’s a nice feeling. It’s where we want to be. <\/p>\n
“The players and management group want to be part of these big games that have got real importance to them. There’s a lot of excitement, little bit of nerves as you can imagine and a good edge around the place.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Considering they started the Six Nations with a humbling 36-14 defeat by France in Paris, Ireland have done well to remain in the title hunt going into a fascinating climactic weekend. After losing to Les Bleus for the second year in a row, Ireland bounced back to beat Italy in Dublin, although their celebrations were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}