'It was a nightmare' - John Fogarty on 2023 Murrayfield chaos

John Fogarty went through his full repertoire of imitations as he recalled the reaction in the Ireland dressing room to the series of setbacks that hit the team in Murrayfield two years ago.

A recap.

In the round-four game against Scotland, unbeaten Ireland lost four forwards to injury, including both hookers, Dan Sheehan and Rónan Kelleher, in the opening 48 minutes, with prop Cian Healy forced to cover the scrum and wing forward Josh van der Flier throwing into the lineout.

With a potential Grand Slam on the line, Andy Farrell's side dug deep to emerge 22-7 victors ahead of the final-round home match against England, where they duly wrapped up the title.

"We’re f****d," laughed scrum coach Fogarty when asked what was going through his mind before correcting himself after a light-hearted appeal from the press officer.

"Let me try that again. 'Oh, we're in big trouble.' It was a nightmare. For me, I was in a little bit of a panic.

"I was talking to Cian Healy about, you know, 'you've got to keep the brake foot up’ and ‘will we do this and will we do that?’

"We came in at half-time and I was trying to figure it out my mind.

"And I walked into Andy, and he just goes ‘this is brilliant!’, and he was smiling and way happier in the chaos of what was happening, two hookers, ‘who's throwing the ball in and who's going to scrummage?’

"Have I done enough, have I spent enough time with Cian, how will that look? The game is on a knife edge.

"They put us under serious pressure that first half and they're in their dressing room thinking ‘we've got ‘em’, you know, and we’re thinking… there was a little bit of [worry] from me and from Paul (O’Connell, lineout coach).

"Paul isn't as cool as you might think, but we had a good plan.

"The playing