It is a line that has been quoted many times on sports pages in recent months for obvious reasons. The great Jock Stein’s mantra that football is nothing without fans has never been proven more true than in the months of the coronavirus pandemic.

The legendary Celtic manager would no doubt have had a great deal of sympathy for the current incumbent at Parkhead, Neil Lennon, as I am convinced that the problems being experienced by Celtic are a lot to do with the lack of fans, particularly at home. You might argue that it’s the same for all the clubs in professional sport at the moment, and I would not disagree. Having your fans roaring you on, particularly at your home ground, does confer an advantage, especially when, like Celtic and Rangers, you have 50,000 of them.

It is the same for Scotland playing at Murrayfield. It is likely that Scotland v France would have attracted a full house at Murrayfield and I am as sure as I can be that the encouragement of the passionate Scottish support might just have driven the Scots to a famous victory which would have seen them go to Twickenham in the final of the Autumn Nations Cup.

If everybody had known that France were going to be without their stars such as Antoine Dupont and Virimi Vakatawa due to some Gallic idiocy on insisting that players can only take part in three Autumn tests, the organisers might just have kicked France out – they effectively expelled Fiji for Covid-19 violations but the French Federation has no such excuse for not putting out its best XV – and Scotland could have played.

It would have been a much more antiseptic encounter than any other England v Scotland match but any final, especially against England, would still have been worth playing. So the consolation prize is the match in Dublin against Ireland to decide the third and fourth places in what has been a useful tournament, though without fans it was never going to be memorable. Scotland will not need to be reminded about what happened in the World Cup last year and in the Six Nations in February when captain Stuart Hogg made that schoolboy error and dropped the ball in the act of scoring a try.

Ireland are no longer in the kind of form that made them such a force in past seasons but they will still present a huge challenge to Scotland. There’s also one astonishing statistic that might just inspire the Irish – Ireland and Scotland have contested a total of 136 rugby test matches since their first meeting in 1877. Scotland have won 66 of those matches, whilst Ireland have won 65 matches. There have also been five drawn matches between the two nations.

In other words, if Ireland win at the weekend they will draw level with Scotland in the number of matches won. And for the history minded that first match way back in 1877 was played on Ormeau Cricket Ground in Belfast and ended with a six goals to nil thrashing by Scotland over Ireland.

There are those who will dismiss the match as meaningless but every game between Scotland and Ireland is important and finishing third in the Nations Cup, let’s face it, is much better than finishing fourth.

Had the Irish fans been in the Aviva Stadium in huge numbers on Saturday I would have given Scotland little chance of victory but the pandemic, as I have indicated, has effectively robbed Ireland of home advantage and we will probably not have a better chance in years of beating them.

Much will depend on who is able to play for Scotland and even more important will be the necessity for head coach Gregor Townsend and his staff to wipe out the indiscipline and the errors which cost Scotland so dear against France. Play without too many mistakes and Scotland can win this match.

We have not won in Dublin since 2010, so even in a game without fans it is still important for Scotland to win, and win well.

AND Another THING On a personal note, more years ago than I like to remember, I knew a fanatical rugby man called John Skinner. He played for Dumbarton RFC in the 70s before emigrating to Austria where his enthusiasm for rugby led him to found Vienna Celtic, the country’s first rugby club.

He kept many friendships back home and at the age of 63 in 2013 in his last ever rugby match he led Vienna Celtic to play against Loch Lomond RFC, the successor club to Dumbarton and Vale of Leven rugby clubs.

Vienna Celtic stated on their website: “It is with our deepest sorrow, that we inform you of the passing of our founding father John Skinner, who passed away last Saturday. We send our deepest condolences to his wife Christa and the family.

“John brought rugby to Austria and was the initiator of creating the Vienna Celtic Rugby Football Club in 1978. His vision was to build an international rugby club in Vienna and to establish rugby in Austria.

“He was a great leader, gentleman, close friend and rugby enthusiast.”

John Skinner, a real rugby man, will be much missed.