Scotland sweat over 'freak' injuries as Darcy Graham taken to hospital and Finn Russell removal explained

The winger was treated on the Murrayfield pitch for around 10 minutes before being taken off on a buggy with his head and neck in a brace.

The incident happened in the 21st minute, forcing Scotland into a backline reshuffle which saw Jamie Dobie and Stafford McDowall replace Graham and Russell and Tom Jordan move from centre to stand-off.

“Darcy is in hospital and that's never good when someone in your squad is away at hospital,” said Gregor Townsend, the Scotland coach. “We are still waiting for scans. I believe there are no issues around his neck. But it’s more just seeing where the concussion has come from. I'm just hoping there are no broken bones around the face or skull area.”

The condition of Graham, who was released from hospital on Sunday evening, will now be monitored ahead of Scotland’s next match, against England at Twickenham on February 22. Russell was also removed from the fray but, unlike Graham, the stand-off actually passed his head injury assessment. However, the decision was taken to keep him off on the advice of assistant coach Pete Horne.

“He passed his HIA,” said Townsend. “It was more communication that Pete Horne and a couple of other guys on the sideline were having with him. We decided it wasn’t right. He had passed his HIA, but there were a couple of things he wasn't remembering about plays. So we made the call not to put him back on.

“He's fine. He's obviously frustrated. It was a freak injury when you collide with your own player. It happened to him once before with Zander playing for Glasgow against Connacht many years ago. It's a huge blow for both those players. Two key players for us to have out.

“We went with six-two on the bench [the split of forwards and backs] and as luck would have it, you lose two backs early on in the game. I have to say the two players that came on, Stafford and Jamie, played really well. Tom played really well at 10. You're asking them to come on when you're 10-0 down.”

A seventh-minute try from Calvin Nash put Ireland in the driving seat, with man-of-the-match Sam Prendergast adding a conversion and a penalty. Caelan Doris, the Irish captain, scored their second try, converted by Prendergast, after the Graham-Russell incident to make it 17-0 but Scotland struck at the end of the first half, Duhan van der Merwe producing a spectacular finish in the corner. The winger had earlier been yellow-carded.

Two penalties from Blair Kinghorn brought Scotland to within six points early in the second half but Ireland pulled away with two more tries, from James Lowe and Jack Conan, and another Prendergast penalty. Scotland scored a late try through Ben White, converted by Kinghorn, but the game had long gone by that point.

It’s the 11th time in a row Ireland have beaten Scotland. “I felt we were getting back into the game, getting to within six points,” said Townsend who was left to rue Scotland’s failure to deal with the restart at 17-11, Matt Fagerson dropping the ball. “You look at the error off the kick-off, that just gives the momentum back, but up to that stage, we were building back into the game.”

The coach added: “We didn’t play well enough today. We made a few errors in that first 20 minutes. A couple of handling errors, obviously, the penalty that led to a yellow card.

“It put us under unnecessary pressure. But the middle period was where we'd go back into the game. We just didn't do enough to get ahead on the scoreboard. Once they score another try, it's very tough to get ahead again.”