Six Nations 2024: Scotland need 'something special' for trip to Ireland

Stafford McDowall will win his second Scotland cap in Dublin

Head coach Gregor Townsend knows Scotland need "something special" to topple Ireland in Dublin on Saturday.

A draw is enough to clinch back-to-back Six Nations titles for the hosts, who seek a 10th straight win over Scotland.

The Scots' last away win over Ireland came in 2010.

"We need to deliver our best performance this season to come away with a positive result," said Townsend, who makes two changes to his starting XV after defeat to Italy in Rome.

"We know how tough it's going to be. They are one of the top two teams in the world at home where they have been virtually unbeatable over the last few years.

"It's going to require something special but we believe in the players.

"The frustration is that we are not going to Dublin with four wins. We feel we had a win taken away from us against France and we could have been better against Italy."

Stafford McDowall makes his first tournament appearance. The Glasgow centre, 26, made his debut against Italy last summer but was not included in the World Cup squad.

He takes over from Cameron Redpath to join club-mate Huw Jones in midfield.

Ben White returns in place of George Horne at scrum-half having been rested for last weekend's disappointing 31-29 loss in Rome, which left Scotland third in the standings.

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Both Horne and Redpath drop to the bench, where they are joined by experienced loose-head prop Rory Sutherland, who has yet to feature in this year's tournament.

Former captain Jamie Ritchie, Ali Price and Alec Hepburn are the trio dropping out of the squad.

"We feel he deserves the opportunity," said Townsend of McDowall.

"It will be a very physical match and he's probably the biggest guy in our backline, outside of Duhan [van der Merwe]. He's a hard worker too.

"His cohesion with Huw means they should hit it off like they have been doing for their club."

Scotland squandered a 22-10 lead last weekend, but Townsend has faith in the group he leads as he approaches the end of his seventh Six Nations campaign as head coach.

"If you change what you've been doing because of one defeat or one performance that had negative elements then you're forgetting what went on beforehand," he said.

"Before that 20-minute period when we lost our focus, we played a lot of good rugby and we played a lot of good rugby leading up to the Italy game."

The most recent meeting was a one-sided 36-14 Irish win at the World Cup in October, with Scotland conceding six tries before getting on the scoreboard.

"You can't knock off for a second," warned Townsend. "We learned the hard way in Paris where we actually had a lot of the game in the first 20 minutes but we knocked off a couple of rucks and that cost us because Ireland are very good with their possession.

"That's something we have to accept; they will score points. It will be a real test for our defence and we have to score points, get to 20 or more, which will be tough, but we believe the players can do that against any team."

Scotland: Kinghorn, Steyn, Jones, McDowall, Van Der Merwe, Russell, White; Schoeman, Turner, Z Fagerson, Gilchrist, Cummings, Christie, Darge, Dempsey.

Replacements: Ashman, Sutherland, Millar-Mills, Skinner, M Fagerson, Horne, Redpath, Rowe.

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