'In this Scottish team we have some of the best players ever'

Former captain Kelly Brown is backing flanker Rory Darge to make the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia and help Scotland end their 10-game losing run against Ireland at Scottish Gas Murrayfield.

Darge, 24, scored a try in Scotland’s 31-19 win over Italy and is Scotland’s co-captain alongside Finn Russell, whose performance against the Azzurri mirrored the team’s good and bad periods.

In contrast, Darge was impressive throughout, showing the kind of form at the breakdown and in the loose that will be needed if Scotland are to register their first win over Ireland since 2017 when they won 27-22 at Murrayfield with a team containing Huw Jones, Russell, Jonny Gray and Zander Ferguson, who will be on duty on Sunday.

Brown, who won 64 Scotland caps and led his country 14 times, told RugbyPass: “I think there was enough for Scotland to see in the way England played against Ireland to say that the run of defeats can come to an end. We need to be at 90-95 per cent of our peak (to win) and we have players to conjure something out of nothing.

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“We will score tries and so we need to get our kicking game right and Ireland put England under pressure with that tactic along with our defence being on point and slowing ball down in the tackle.

“Rory is certainly in the Lions tour mix and there are lot of good back-rows including the Irish and the starting one for England which was three players in the Rory Darge mould. Jac Morgan was phenomenal in a Welsh team that was well beaten and that shows the depth available to the Lions. But Rory knows he has four more games to back up his performances and he has as good a chance as anybody.

“Rory took his try really well and it has been great to see him bring his form onto the international stage. I had been hearing a lot about him and he was tipped to do great things and while he is not the biggest, he has this way of riding tackles and wriggling out of contact to make yards. The co-captains Rory and Finn are very different characters and it is nice to have that contrast in the team.

“In this Scottish team we have some of the best players ever with Finn Russell in the top three we have ever had. He didn’t have a great game and we still found a way of winning against Italy despite everyone getting a bit anxious. We wrestled back the initiative – a little bit of Darcy Graham magic and great lines from Huw Jones – to win fairly comfortably against a good Italian side while not playing that well.

“England showed that if you are going to play against one of the best teams in the world then you cannot afford to drop off at all. Ireland found another gear in the third quarter, changed their tactics,”

“The losing run against Ireland spans World Cups and it doesn’t feel like 10 games. Ireland have been in the world’s top three during that time and have got incredible strength of depth.

“England put Ireland under an incredible amount of pressure in Dublin, getting up in defence and causing Ireland issues at the breakdown but in the second half the Irish found a way to win the territory battle. That is the sign of a class team because they were second best in the first half and I know it ended up close but it was pretty comfortable for Ireland in that second half.

“That shows how experienced and well-coached Ireland are to be able to find the fixes and turn the game around.”