The Irish squad completed their preparations and began the countdown to tomorrow's opening Five Nations tie against Scotland in a mood of quiet confidence. Huge game though it is, there seems to be little sign of desperation, with the management having emphasised the positive throughout the week. This game, almost a mini-World Cup final for these two teams, could come down to whoever fears losing the least.

With the management and five of the side still retaining memories of last season's 38-10, second-half obliteration at Murrayfield, one of the key aspects of the Irish display will be the first-up tackling. Asked how the Irish midfield (completely changed from last year) will stem the Townsend-Tait axis which carved through last season, coach Brian Ashton laughed and said simply: "Tackle. We didn't tackle last year."

There has been a healthy emphasis on defence in the Limerick NCTC this week and Ashton declared himself "very satisfied" with the week's work. "We've put in a very good week's work and we've been injury free, which is unusual for us."

In a low-key final press conference, he merely re-iterated much of what he has already said, maintaining that Ireland are "looking to win this match. We believe we can and we've made no secret of that."

He repeated his assertion that the Irish had created more chances against Italy than Scotland had "but we didn't avail of them."

Partly for that reason, no doubt, David Humphreys has been retained, a source of some curiosity to the travelling Scottish media corps who inquired as to whether he was a horses for courses selection. "He'll give us more options against Scotland," said Ashton, "but he might also be the best man for France, Wales and England as well."

A feature of this game, and a reflection on the similarities between the hard-pressed domestic games in both countries, is that there are only seven home-based players among the 30 starting tomorrow's match.

Manager Pat Whelan effectively admitted that most of Ireland's leading players had flown the nest and it would hard to get them back. "That would be financially impossible so we're concentrating on the second group and redistributing our resources accordingly."

Earlier in the day, the full 22-man Irish squad had gone through their last preparatory session at the NCTC prior to travelling to Dublin by train. It was an all-embracing, thorough enough 90 minute work-out, concentrating on rucking, mauling, support play, and working off scrums, line-outs, restarts and broken play, which, as Ashton put it "concentrated on individual and team skills".

In the absence of Mike Ruddock, laid low with flu this week, Ashton was again assisted solely by Warren Gatland. There were a few spilled passes, about half a dozen, and though not quite scaling the standards of the previous day's runout, generally it was a good finale to what has been a positive week's work. You can sense the confidence within the squad. They certainly look well prepared. Now it's just a question of transferring that to the pitch and upping their standards another notch or two. Simple really.