They've stuttered through Italy and confounded all known sense against France.

They've taken advantage of the Shakespearean travails of the Welsh and come through a ferocious gut-check against Scotland. And through it all, they've grown in stature, cohesion and confidence to leave as unlikely a state of affairs as could have been conceived only a few weeks ago. Ireland go to Twickenham next Saturday with a shot at the Triple Crown and the Six Nations Championship. Who ever said sport was explainable?

Yesterday was an intense, never-look-away afternoon in rain as incessant as a dodgy rumour. Ireland had the majority of the ball, the lion's, lioness's and cub's share of the territory and just couldn't break a dogged Scottish side down to cross for a try. It shouldn't have mattered. If Australian referee Stuart Dickinson had called the Scots for a fraction of the offsides they were guilty of, Ronan O'Gara would have kicked the game safe long before the end.

As it was, things were tight all the way. No more than you'd have expected, really, from a match-up in which nobody was completely sure where the goods lay beforehand. It's always funny to realise how others see you. It was hard to remember a game where two sides . . . or perhaps more accurately the followers of two sides . . . went in with such dead-eyed expectations of winning. The build-up was flavoured by sagely-nodded "you can't afford to underestimate this lot" wisdom. The strange thing was it prevailed on both sides.

We Irish watched Scotland put manners on the tournament's hoity-toits and yet somehow thought we'd be immune. And for the first 10 minutes at least, so it transpired. David Wallace was hit hard and hit early by Jason White but it was the Scottish flanker who lost yardage.

Geordan Murphy had a couple of darts, Brian O'Driscoll too.

Dickinson crooked an admonitory finger at Ally Hogg and warned him he'd be accepting no nonsense at the breakdown. All in all, it led to Ireland finally managing the sprinted start they'd been looking for all year, two Ronan O'Gara penalties cashing in the good work.

But then, to the sound of grinding teeth all around the old ground on its last Six Nations day, Ireland gave away tut-tut penalties to let the Scots stay within spitting distance. An accidental offside from the restart after O'Gara's second kick, another feckless transgression right in front of the sticks four minutes later. Two portions of meat and drink to Chris Paterson. Fifteen minutes gone and, carelessly, all square.

Dickinson, for all his big talk early on, put up with a huge amount of over-the-edge Scottish positioning and it was hard to see why he waited until just before the break to take captain White aside and warn him that the next transgressor was going in the bin.

Thus, the pattern of the opening period continued unchecked. Ireland would put the ball through hands until the space opened up, the runners would have a go . . . an Andrew Trimble scoot through, another from Gordon D'Arcy, still another from Jerry Flannery . . . and after a while, the Scots would be called for another the offside and O'Gara would have a kick at goal. He made two and missed one before half-time, decent enough reward for some hardy work on an increasingly dirty day from the rest of his team.

But inevitably, and with nowhere near the equivalent effort, Scotland went back up the Irish side of the pitch, drew an offside and Paterson kicked from straight in front of the posts. The upshot was the Ireland went in at the break only 12-9 up when their possession, territory, play . . . everything . . .

said they should have been a couple of scores clear.

Oh, but it was a dog of a day and a brute of a match, fitting for a farewell to this rusty old shack. The rain slowed the action to a walk for a fair portion of the rest of the game and the Scots, despite Dickinson's warning, played perpetually beyond the offside line. This all conspired to limit both Irish scoring opportunities and general patience.

It was still, for all that, Ireland's game to win or throw away. Trimble was almost in after six minutes of the second half. Murphy's pass was on the Ulsterman's toes three yards out and the stoop he needed to collect gave Hugo Southwell the nanosecond he needed to throw him the wrong side of the corner flag.

It was savage Irish pressure, though, and it paid off not long after when yet another Scottish offside gave O'Gara the chance to kick Ireland 159 ahead. He obliged.

Ireland were playing some of their best stuff of the tournament now. There were hearty, committed performances all over the park, from Flannery's whizz to Peter Stringer's fizz. Paul O'Connell made a mockery of his shoulder injury for the 65 minutes he was on the field and Malcolm O'Kelly was towering over even O'Connell in terms of impact. Thanks to that kind of effort, pretty much the whole of the second half was played in the Scottish half and yet O'Gara's kick accounted for the only addition to the scoreboard.

It was enough.