O'Kelly happy with forwards' statement

Six Nations: Big Mal sloped by the Irish dressing-room with his kit bag slumped over his right shoulder but, seeing the media posse through the connecting door, came over. "I suppose you want to talk to me?" He's not one for having a fuss made over him, but he knew the score.

To the disbelieving Girvan Dempsey and Johnny O'Connor alongside him, O'Kelly maintained that scoring Ireland's breakthrough try on the day he eclipsed Mike Gibson as Ireland's most capped rugby player of all time was no different than any of his previous six Test tries.

"It was no more emotional than scoring any other time for Ireland," he said, his voice affected by a cold. "It's a very emotional thing, full stop. I was very happy and I think the lads were very happy for me."

Asked whether the circumstances of his day gave an extra edge to his game, he said: "I felt great. I'm coming down with a bit of a cold but it didn't really stop me. I was absolutely delighted and I felt really good out there.

"We wanted to make a statement. We knew we didn't take on the Italians like we would have liked. The Scots gave it everything they had but it's so hard to defend the rolling maul when it's as tight as we were."

Rejecting the suggestion that the Scottish pack had capitulated, captain Paul O'Connell maintained: "I found that actually a tougher game than last week up front. It's just we got into the game a bit more, we got our maul going a bit more, we carried a bit more ball up front, something we didn't do last week. Instead of imposing ourselves last week, we let the game drift by us. This week we imposed ourselves a bit more."

O'Connor credited his one-time Connacht sidekick Mervyn Murphy with good preparatory work on the Scottish halves, Chris Cusiter and Dan Parks, and there was a nice moment as he left the pitch with another one-time Connacht sidekick Gavin Duffy after the latter's first try in Test rugby late on. "I was just delighted for him. I could see it was coming for him and I was just really happy to see a fellow lad from Connacht doing so well."

O'Connor's credentials as a Test match openside had been questioned by Willie Anderson, but when reminded of this the Wasps player commented: "I think you have to keep on proving yourself at this level. I think I'm getting better and better, and hopefully I can quieten people down eventually."

Eddie O'Sullivan couldn't have been much more content with Ireland's standing after the first phase of the campaign. "We've learned certain things from the two games. We've learned to keep our composure and keep our shape under pressure and we've learned to be patient as well, and to change our gameplans based on what we have available to us and the weather conditions.

"They're good learning curves in the cauldron of a Six Nations championship. It hasn't been the prettiest two weeks of rugby, but I'd rather have two wins under my belt and be ugly than a loss or two and look very pretty. It's a job well done, a tough two weeks but we've come out the right side of it."

Watching the body language of the Scottish management in their box adjacent to the press box was as accurate a barometer as the noises and singing from the crowd. Initially voluble and smiling, they gradually slumped quietly back into their chairs.

The Matt Williams post-match inquisition was painful to behold. Aside from re-asserting his determination to stay for "the long haul" he was understandably keen to stress the qualities of this Irish team.

"I don't think there's a lot between the teams in this competition but it's a very, very good Irish team and they deserve to be favourites. As I've said before, it's the most talented group since the War. I've coached most of them. I know what a strong group they are, and they're well capable of winning it. They've just not to get ahead of themselves." Bring on England.

"It's the big one," admitted Dempsey. "When the fixture list comes out every year, you look at the England and France games, and savour those two. They're the big games and the big stages that everyone wants to play in. We'll know more later in the week about the two lads (O'Driscoll and D'Arcy) but I think everyone put up their hands and said they want to be picked in these games."