Round four.

Ireland are in the driving seat heading into their round four Six Nations clash with Scotland, thanks to their bonus-point win over Wales, and their next opponent’s win over England.

They currently sit top of the table, five points clear of their closest rivals England, with just two games to go. If we’re being honest, it’s Ireland’s championship to lose at this stage.

But as we saw this past weekend, Scotland are no pushovers. Ireland will need to be as good, if not better than they were against Wales in order to secure a win, and a potential third championship under Joe Schmidt.

We know now that Schmidt will be forced to make at least one change from the win over Wales, with Chris Farrell now ruled out for the remainder of the Six Nations. But we reckon he’ll make a couple of more, with Iain Henderson and Tadhg Furlong in line for returns.

Here’s the team we reckon will start against Scotland.

15. Rob Kearney
14. Keith Earls
13. Garry Ringrose
12. Bundee Aki
11. Jacob Stockdale
10. Johnny Sexton
9. Conor Murray

1. Cian Healy
2. Rory Best (Captain)
3. Tadhg Furlong
4. Iain Henderson
5. James Ryan
6. Peter O’Mahony
7. Dan Leavy
8. CJ Stander

Replacements:
16. Sean Cronin
17. Jack McGrath
18. Andrew Porter
19. Devin Toner
20. Jack Conan
21. Kieran Marmion
22. Joey Carbery
23. Fergus McFadden/Andrew Conway/Rory Scannell