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John Dalziel says Scotland cannot afford to let up against Ireland
By PA
Scotland forwards coach John Dalziel challenged his team to produce the 80-minute performance they will need to finish their Guinness Six Nations campaign on a high.
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Scotland followed up their opening win over England with defeats by Wales and France before beating Italy 33-22 in Rome on Saturday.
They finish against title-chasing Ireland, who have won 10 of the last 11 meetings between the sides, with Scotland looking for their first win in Dublin since 2010.
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“It’s probably the toughest tournament in the world and every team strives for that momentum.
“We are striving to put big passages of play together and play our brand of rugby. I thought for 60 minutes at the weekend we did that, scored five tries away from home against a team that’s really improving.
“We are looking to deliver that 80-minute performance this weekend.
“They have been a strong team for many a year and a bit of a bogey team for us. All the elements of our game have to be at a very high level consistently and in games gone by it’s been one or two areas that have let us down and taken the shine off loads of good bits that we got right.
“They are such a formidable team and we have tough games, we see that provincially, the lads play against the Irish teams and we have tough games, especially away from home.
“There’s a lot of learning and shared stuff and we feel if we get our game right then we have a game that can trouble them.
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“But do we have the ability to play that for 80 minutes in Dublin and get into the positions where we are asking them questions, as well as them asking us?
“We have had great periods in games but we have been far from our best as well.
“But we know if we click we can cause any team problems and we have a pretty good history in recent years of getting big wins away from home – and we want to finish the championship with that big win.”
Scotland earlier called up Glasgow prop Murphy Walker and Scotland Sevens winger Jordan Edmunds for the first time, as well as Fraser Brown and Scott Cummings. Kiran McDonald, Glen Young and Duhan van der Merwe have all returned to their clubs.
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Former Scotland Under-20 forward Walker, 22, has only made six appearances for Warriors.
“Murphy is a fantastic young player,” Dalziel said. “In such a short period of time, he has developed both sides of his scrum. He was a loosehead prop and he made a huge transition on to the tighthead side. He has played professional rugby already on both sides of the scrum.
“We have been really impressed with him for a long time. He was held up by a couple of hamstring injuries, a pretty major hamstring tear that he had.
“He is back and we feel as national team coaches that we want to work with him and with the summer tour coming up, if we can push him through to be part of that prop stable, he is a very talented kid.”
Edmunds, 27, recently joined Scotland Sevens after impressing for Boroughmuir Bears.
“Jordan is a late developer,” Dalziel said. “He has been playing excellent club rugby but hasn’t had the opportunity to step up.
“The Sevens is a great pathway for him at the moment and we are very pleased to take a look at him. He is a very physical and he is training really well.”
