Ireland have arguably the better men's rugby union team, but Scotland are at the men's football World Cup. It's probably a dead heat deciding which country wins in the whisk(e)y stakes. But, with respect to the functional appeal of Ireland's Call, there's not a lot of doubt about whose anthem sounds the best when belted out at a packed sporting occasion.
Flower of Scotland is an epic, and it doubtless resonates with those opponents who might also have had their reasons to send the English homeward to think again. It has the gravitas of a melody of old, even though it was only composed in the 1960s and to date, has been played on the bagpipes or sung by boys' choirs at sporting events.
Now, it has been re-recorded by a girls' choir from George Watson's College, the alma mater of a number of Scotland's most prominent sportspeople, including the Hastings brothers of rugby union fame. More recently, it helped to develop the cricketing talents of the Bryce sisters, as well as Gabriella Fontenla, Scotland's 18-year-old rising star. The college's rendition will be used throughout this T20 World Cup. If Scotland didn't have the musical edge before, they definitely do now.
"It's a really cool relationship that we have with Watson College. So to expand on that, and have the girls sing the anthem, is going to be super special," Chloe Abel, Scotland's Tasmanian-born seamer, said at the pre-match press conference. "For the last World Cup, we had a few different variations that came out on game day, so for this to be quite personal for the team as well is super exciting."
Abel, who spends half the year working as a nurse in Hobart, has Scottish roots through her Glaswegian mother and considers herself as patriotic as any of her countrywomen. She also has a special supporter traveling for this tournament. "My 85-year-old granny's coming down for the first three games," she said. "And it's an absolute privilege to wear the thistle with pride and not represent just my mum and my granny, but also myself."
The 22-year old is the only member of the Scotland squad who does not spend the northern-hemisphere summers playing in England, which means theirs is an outfit packed with familiarity of the conditions ahead of the event. In fact, they're so comfortable and brimming with confidence that Abel said it "feels a bit like home and is probably the closest to a home World Cup we're going to get."
Scotland are coming into the tournament off the back of home tri-series success, which included a first-ever win over Bangladesh, and also have a recent advantage over their Celtic rivals, Ireland.
Though Ireland have the historical upper hand, having won nine of their 15 meetings, Scotland have come up trumps on the last three occasions, and two of those were in T20 World Cup qualifiers. It was Scotland who dumped Ireland out of contention for the 2024 tournament, and you can be sure that's in the memory bank.
Asked about the results against Scotland and whether this was a revenge match of sorts, Ireland's captain Gaby Lewis almost bristled. "You don't come to World Cups to lose games," she said. "As a squad, we're very confident. In the last couple of years, we've had some really good results against top-ranked teams, and now it's just about doing it at a World Cup."
In the last two years, Ireland have won 23 out of 31 T20Is and have beaten Sri Lanka and England in matches and Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Pakistan in series. Coming into this event, they got a result over West Indies just 11 days ago in a home tri-series that included Pakistan.
On a global stage, they no longer see themselves as the newcomers that they were at the 2023 T20 World Cup, which was their maiden global event, and they have professionalism to thank for that.
'There's been some massive changes in our whole programme, in terms of when I first started and it was amateur," Lewis said. "Now we're lucky enough to be fully professional, we're able to train every day, not have to work day-jobs, and things like that. There's no doubt that has had an impact on our performances on the pitch. And also just believing that we can do it. We definitely have more belief going into this World Cup than we did going into the one in South Africa."
Still, they remain without a win at a T20 World Cup after four tournaments and 17 matches, and you'd think their best chance to change that will be against their regional rivals.
However, Lewis acknowledged that the squad was concerned by events currently unfolding in Belfast, where anti-migration riots have turned violent in recent days. On Thursday, Cricket Ireland issued a statement confirming it was monitoring events, with the prospect that some men's domestic matches would be affected.
"We have a couple of girls (Amy Hunter and Cara Murray among them) from up north and it's definitely a worry for a number of the girls," Lewis said. "We hope that everyone is safe and that it's under control. We'll remain focused on this tournament but we're devastated to hear what's happening up north, and I wish everyone a safe recovery."
Whether those issues will distract or drive the squad remains to be seen. All they know is that Scotland are champing at the bit to have a go at them on their biggest stage, to hear their personalised anthem, and then to steal some eyes away from those footballers, who are due to play Haiti in the early Sunday hours of Sunday morning, in their first appearance at the men's World Cup for 36 years.
"I know the Football World Cup is pretty big, but this is still really big for us in Scotland," Abel said. "We're a small nation with a small talent pool, but we can play some really, really good cricket."