Preview: Ireland expects a response against Scotland

After naming his final Guinness Six Nations squad of the season on Thursday, Ireland head coach Andy Farrell laid down a challenge to his team: Perform when it matters.

While there's no longer a Grand Slam at stake, the suggestion that a championship title with just four wins from five would merely be a "consolation prize" is an insult to the generations of Ireland squads that were rarely within a sniff of winning one.

Winning a title, and a second title in a row, definitely matters.

The defending champions were humbled by England at Twickenham last week, a game they should have won even if they didn’t deserve to.

A mark of this Ireland team has been their ability to get into a winning position, even on an off-day, and finish the job. The fact that they gave up a title-clinching win in the final 90 seconds will sting.

As rare as it is to see Ireland give up a winning position, it’s even rarer for them to lose two games in a row.

Only once in Farrell’s four years in charge have Ireland been beaten in consecutive games, with that coming at the start of the 2021 Six Nations.

Since then, each of their defeats have been met with a response; after losing to France in 2022 they hammered Italy at the Aviva Stadium before going on to win a Triple Crown, while later that year they reacted emphatically to their first Test defeat in New Zealand to complete a stunning series win.

The manner in which they took apart France in their first game since their gut-wrenching World Cup exit would also suggest they aren’t in the habit of stewing on defeat.

The big question is whether they can do it when it the chips are down.

The evidence for that is mixed. The positive evidence comes from the All Blacks series in 2022, and their Grand Slam last year,