Ireland beats Scotland 32-18 in Six Nations to take huge step to unprecedented third straight title

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Ireland took a huge step toward an unprecedented third straight Six Nations title on Sunday by securing a bonus-point 32-18 win at Scotland, which lost two key players in the first half to a nasty clash of heads at Murrayfield.

The Irish backed up an opening-round victory over England and leads on a maximum 10 points — having met two of their toughest opponents already.

With a trip to rock-bottom Wales next in two weeks and a closing match at Italy, only France — in Dublin in Round 4 — might be able to stop Ireland winning a third successive outright title. That hasn't been achieved in the 142-year history of the tournament, which started out as a contest between the home unions of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland before France was added in 1910 to make it a Five Nations and Italy joined in 2000 for the modern-day Six Nations.

Ireland scored tries through Calvin Nash and Caelan Doris to lead 17-5 at halftime, by which time Scotland had seen winger Darcy Graham and star flyhalf Finn Russell forced off after crashing into each other head first attempting to tackle Ireland scrumhalf Jamison Gibson-Park. Russell didn't come back out after a Head Injury Assessment while Graham was carried off on a cart and was also replaced

Scotland winger Duhan van der Merwe — who was sent to the sin-bin in the 14th minute — dotted down spectacularly in the last move of the first half and two penalties by Blair Kinghorn trimmed the gap to 17-11.

Ireland pulled away again, though, thanks to tries by winger James Lowe and replacement forward Jack Conan just before the hour mark.

Ireland flyhalf Sam Prendergast kicked three conversions and two penalties for a 12-point haul while Ben White grabbed Scotland's late second try.

''We set out at the beginning of this championship to keep getting better, keep challenging each other in terms of the standards, and I think we've seen some of that today,'' said Simon Easterby, who is filling in as Ireland's head coach with Andy Farrell on a sabbatical with the British and Irish Lions.

''There is an opportunity (of a Grand Slam), which has been well documented. We've got to make sure that we prepare in the right way for Wales and go there with the same mindset that we came here with.''

Scotland coach Gregor Townsend said he hoped Russell would be available for the Round 3 game against England and was waiting for the results of scans on Graham.

''I believe there are no issues around his neck, but it's more just seeing where the concussion has come from," Townsend said. ''I'm just hoping there are no broken bones around the face or skull area.''

On the game, Townsend said: ''When you're 17-0 down, when things haven't gone well for you and you've had to make changes, you do fear that the opposition could build on that, but I was really proud of the way we came back at the end of the first half."

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