Karate kid brought in to help Scots kick losing habit

The last time Scotland were in the Irish capital, it seemed like the demolition squad had moved in early at Lansdowne Road, such was the impact of Jason White's JCB tackling. Not that it was quite enough to halt Scotland's losing run in Dublin, Ronan O'Gara kicking Ireland to a 15-9 victory. Two years on, the Caledonian boys are back in town to break new ground at Croke Park this afternoon – without their wounded wrecking ball of a captain but with the karate kid in tow.

Frank Hadden's team are in dire need of some clout following a feeble start to the Six Nations Championship and Alasdair Strokosch a quarter-finalist in the under 21 shotokan karate world championships at the age of 16, would seem ideally qualified to provide it. White having failed to recover from the head knock he suffered in the 30-15 defeat in Cardiff a fortnight ago, the Gloucester flanker has been brought in on the blindside with the intention of enforcing a back row that has struggled to get a grip at the breakdown.

It will be a first international start for the 25-year-old, who has a German father and was raised in East Kilbride. He has been emerging at Kingsholm as a back row practitioner very much in the image of his club coach of eight months. Like Dean Ryan, who signed him from Edinburgh last summer, Strokosch is a quiet, brooding Ronseal merchant of a player. He goes about the pragmatic business of doing what it says on his tin in an understated but clinical fashion – to such good effect he was named the Guinness Premiership player of the month for December.

"Dean was very hard and physical as a player and I like the way he works as a coach," Strokosch reflected. "He's very controlled, very technical, and very good at getting across what he wants. He has been a huge influence on me and so has playing at Gloucester. I enjoy the confrontational nature of the game in England. It's the part of the game I enjoy the most."

Strokosch does have previous experience of confrontation in the international rugby union arena, but just a 10-minute taste at the tail end of a 44-15 walloping inflicted by the Wallabies at Murrayfield 15 months ago.

It is likely to be in-your-face stuff all the way today, with the Scots under pressure to perform and to break a losing run in Dublin that stretches back to 1998, and with Ireland desperate to build on the platform of their second-half fight-back in Paris two weeks ago.

For the visitors, much will depend on Strokosch and on his Gloucester club-mate Chris Paterson, whose switch to outside-half in place of Dan Parks was described yesterday by Eddie O'Sullivan, Ireland's head coach, as "changing the dynamics of the Scotland team."

Having not so much plundered as pinched just the one try in their previous five outings, the Scots can ill afford to continue on their sterile, conservative path.

And Ireland cannot afford to lose the momentum they built up in closing to within five points of France last time out. Their captain and outside-centre Brian O'Driscoll passed a test on a tightened calf muscle at Croke Park yesterday, but Girvan Dempsey was ruled out with a hip problem, making way at full-back for Geordan Murphy.

O'Sullivan remains under pressure in the wake of Ireland's World Cup meltdown, though yesterday he found himself fighting the corner of Hadden, whose position as Scotland's head coach has been questioned of late. "I wish him well," O'Sullivan said, before pausing and adding a rider. "Maybe not till Sunday."

Today's Dublin teams

Ireland

15 G Murphy (Leicester)

14 T Bowe (Ulster)

13 B O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt)

12 A Trimble (Ulster)

11 R Kearney (Leinster)

10 R O'Gara (Munster)

9 E Reddan (Munster)

1 M Horan (Munster)

2 B Jackman (Leinster)

3 J Hayes (Munster)

4 D O'Callaghan (Munster)

5 M O'Driscoll (Munster)

6 D Leamy (Munster)

7 D Wallace (Munster)

8 J Heaslip (Leinster)

Replacements: 16 R Best (Ulster), 17 T Buckley, 18 P O'Connell (both Munster), 19 S Easterby (Scarlets), 20 P Stringer (Munster), 21 P Wallace (Ulster), 22 S Horgan (Leinster).

Scotland

15 H Southwell (Edinburgh)

14 N Walker (Ospreys)

13 S Webster (Edinburgh)

12 A Henderson (Glasgow)

11 R Lamont (Sale)

10 C Paterson (Gloucester)

9 M Blair (Edinburgh, capt)

1 A Jacobsen (Edinburgh)

2 R Ford (Edinburgh)

3 E Murray (Northampton)

4 N Hines (Perpignan)

5 S MacLeod (Scarlets)

6 A Strokosch (Gloucester)

7 A Hogg (Edinburgh)

8 K Brown (Glasgow)

Replacements: 16 F Thomson (Glasgow), 17 G Kerr (Edinburgh), 18 J Hamilton (Leicester), 19 R Rennie (Edinburgh), 20 C Cusiter (Perpignan), 21 D Parks (Glasgow), 22 N De Luca (Edinburgh).

Referee: C Berdos (France)

Kick-off: 5pm (BBC 1)