Ex-Howe of Fife flanker Jamie Ritchie hoping for more starts at this year’s Six Nations

​Having played for the first 51 minutes of Saturday’s opening 31-19 victory against Italy at Rdinburgh’s Murratfield Stadium before making way for Jack Dempsey, he’s already halfway to matching that tally with four games left to play, starting with a visit from defending champions Ireland this coming Sunday, with kick-off at 3pm.

Head coach Gregor Townsend is due to name his match-day squad for that game on Friday and Ritchie is hoping his name will be on the teamsheet again.

“I think I've obviously played a reasonable amount and I do feel like I’ve shown what I’m capable of,” said the Dundee-born 28-year-old, at United Rugby Championship side Edinburgh since 2014.

“I feel like I'm in good form for Edinburgh as well, but all I can do is control how I prepare and how I play whenever I get the opportunity. Selection is outwith my control.

“I’ll prepare and do whatever best I can for the team. There’s really strong competition in that kind of back-row area.

“In terms of being in and out of the team, you’ll have to ask Gregor. That’s not up to me.

“Obviously, I love playing for Scotland. From cap one to cap 50-odd now, I’ve enjoyed every single one of them and I always want to do it and I will do it for as long as I can, but, like I say, selection is not up to me. All I can do is prepare and play as well as I can and hopefully get a shout.

“It’s not up to me but I love to be selected. Any opportunity you get to put on a Scotland jersey, I relish it.

“For me, it’s just about concentrating on myself and if I get the call, I get the call.”

Ritchie’s starts at 2024’s championship were for last February’s 27-26 win in Wales and 30-21 home victory over England, though he was also brought on as a 70th-minute replacement for Rory Darge for the month after’s 31-29 defeat in Italy.

He was one of three ex-Howe players in Saturday’s match-day squad to face Italy, alongside No 8 Matt Fagerson and replacement scrum-half George Horne.

Fagerson, 26, played for the full 80 minutes and his Glasgow Warriors team-mate Horne, 29, took over from Ben White on 57 minutes.

Ex-Scotland skipper Ritchie and Fagerson have both passed the half-century mark for international appearances, the former being on 55 caps and the latter on 51, and Horne, with 35, isn’t far behind.

Scotland go into this weekend’s game against interim head coach Simon Easterby’s Irish visitors looking to end a ten-game losing streak dating back seven years but Townsend has warned his players that they’ll need to up their game from Saturday to be in with any chance of managing that.

“I believe we’ll have to be better than we were today to win next weekend,” said the 51-year-old, still waiting for his first victory versus Ireland since taking charge of the national rugby team in 2017, after the Scots’ opener.

“Against England, we’ve been there before and won this fixture. It’s something we’re striving to do against Ireland. We’ve not broken that cycle for the last eight or nine years now. It’s hard to break the cycle but once you’ve broken it, it just becomes another match.

“We’ll have to be close to our best.

“If you’re losing to a team every year until this year, it is disappointing. It’s not through a lack of effort – the effort we put in in Dublin last year was outstanding, the physicality.

“A lot of it is about what we would do differently, but we also understand that Ireland have been a top team now for a while and it’s harder to break that cycle when the team you’re playing against has been that good and has that experience."