But Schmidt expects him to be fit again for Ireland's next encounter against Italy on February 24.

"I'd like to see how they'd describe our Plan A to be honest", said head coach Schmidt, responding to accusations Ireland's gameplan is limited.

"I don't even think it was a Scottish foot, it was one of our guys who tripped over him". He got a cumulative knock after the first knock.

Schmidt was phlegmatic on Scotland targeting Sexton, replying: "It was going to happen, and Johnny probably knew he was only going to play 20 minutes so tried to cram it all into one quarter!" So sometimes that works to our advantage.

That gave Scotland a 5m lineout, but Peter O'Mahony got up and slapped the ball back and Rory Best put it down.

SCOTLAND's hopes of making it two wins out of two in the Six Nations were snuffed out by an Ireland team who, despite being some way below their best, made some amends for their defeat by England a week later.

Mohammed bin Salman 'said Khashoggi should get a bullet'
If neither of those methods worked, the Crown Prince said, then he would go after the slain journalist "with a bullet". She accused Riyadh of compounding the offence by interfering with Turkey's attempts to investigate.

Joe Schmidt says Ireland's stricken World Rugby player of the year Jonathan Sexton suffered a "stamp to the head" - but it may have been friendly fire.

Schmidt also applauded Carbery for responding to his early mistake as the fly-half also kicked a conversion and a late penalty to deny Scotland a losing bonus point.

Stuart Hogg went off with a shoulder injury in an open first half, yet a first worldwide score from Sam Johnson - converted by Laidlaw - reduced the deficit to 12-10 at the break. "We've got to dust ourselves off and get back to the things we do well", he added. With Stuart Hogg, when a player has kicked the ball you have to get out of his way and not make a tackle. "We still have to rely on others in the championship, but we will take stock after the next round and look at what we have to do in the final two".

"Scotland are benefitting from Glasgow and Edinburgh playing confident fast-flowing rugby and if they can produce that tempo and play at 100% they have a really good chance of beating anyone on their day despite having a smaller pool of players to choose from", said Pountney.

"I do think I always get a lot of advice, there wouldn't be too many weeks go by that I don't get a letter, suggesting somebody play there, or suggesting a set play or suggesting something".