Ian Madigan

I think there is definitely an element of truth in it.

If you look back at the last, let's say, 10 fixtures from Ireland where we've had poor performances against New Zealand, South Africa was what it was, a good performance against Australia, England, and then we've

got over the line against Wales and Italy and a poor performance against France.

We haven't shown the consistency that we've shown in previous years.

So he is within his rights to say that.

The key thing for Scotland is they're going to be going into this game with the sole focus on themselves.

And they have the belief that if they play to their best ability, they will win.

And I don't think that that genuine belief has been there in previous seasons.

Right.

They're also not going to change how they're playing.

I think they've set their stall out and they do it really well.

Like their with-to-with game, their ability to get their...

their backs and their forwards realigned, play flat, come all the way back, play deep, the efficiency that they move the opposition around.

And it's become much harder to do this as an attacking team to tire out the opposition because it's nearly easier defending now, but not if you do it the way Scotland do it because they're really...

forcing the defensive team to move from edge to edge.

They utilize the short side really efficiently and they don't tire themselves out when they're attacking.

And as a result of that, they're not leaving themselves exposed if they do turn the ball over, if they do kick the ball.

And that's how they really frustrated the French.

The French thrive on attacking on kind of unstructured or counter-attack play.

And full credit to Gregor, he had a game plan there where they just simply didn't give them those opportunities.