SCOTLAND v IRELAND REACTION: THE MATCH was only seconds old when Stephen Ferris spotted his quarry, calibrated the point of impact and launched himself with a shuddering ferocity.

Scotland’s number eight Simon Taylor bore the brunt of the impact as best he could manage but was nevertheless tossed backwards with a violence and velocity that drew an audible gasp from the crowd.

Ferris craves opportunities to impose his physicality, a remit he fulfilled with due diligence for 80 minutes at Murrayfield on Saturday evening. Ireland’s blindside flanker had a magnificent game from the moment he dumped Taylor to the muddy turf to watching him carry three would-be Scottish assailants on his back 78 minutes later towards their own posts.

Constructive and destructive with equal facility, the Ulsterman demonstrated tremendous conditioning to maintain that level of input. It was only when patiently awaiting the end of Declan Kidney’s formal press conference that Ferris showed any sign of fatigue, reaching quietly for a chair upon which to plonk his frame.

Victory offered a short-lived balm to soothe bruises and aching limbs but the collisions will leave a legacy for a day or two. Ferris’ face brightens at the mention of the Taylor moment as he spools through the memory. “I just knew running up he (Taylor) probably wasn’t going to pass it. I wouldn’t have in the same circumstances.

“It’s about getting yourself into the game. I was 100 per cent sure that in the first minute he was not going to pass the ball. I just lined him up nicely and put in a bit of an impact. It was good to get that hit on him. It’s definitely something I like to do, get a positive moment in a game early on.

“It happened to be in the first minute but you are looking for that in the first five, 10 minutes. It does give you a bit of a lift. I go looking for it in the first few minutes, even if it is carrying (ball) a few yards and offloading. It gives you confidence. I then just went about my job. I thought me, Wally (David Wallace), Jamie (Heaslip) and Denis (Leamy) played pretty well as a unit.”

It’s a fair comment but in the context of the Irish pack, it was post-interval that they offered a truer testament of the collective ability. Prior to the interval they were limited to individual cameos, frustrated by slow ball and perplexed by the interpretation of referee Jonathan Kaplan at scrum time.

Ireland’s hooker Rory Best admitted: “It (the scrum) was messy as both teams were trying to get the upper hand early on. They have a very good scrum but we’ll probably come away with it a little disappointed in terms of the way we did: certainly at the start and end (of the match).

“The middle bit was all right, we held our own but certainly in terms of where we want to go to, we are a little disappointed.”

He explained the difference pre- and post-interval in terms of the team’s performance. “They (Scotland) did a great job at our breakdown. We couldn’t really get the continuity we wanted in the first half. There were a lot of penalties from our boys as a result of getting isolated.

“In fairness to them, they were in very quickly.

“I suppose we couldn’t get the gain line, which is why we couldn’t get any quick ball and because of that we couldn’t get the width we wanted.

“That was probably the big difference between the first half and the first 15 minutes of the second half. We got our gain lines, we got our front-foot ball, we got a bit of quick ball and were able to play. That definitely was the winning of the game, the first 15 (minutes) in the second half.”

The by-product of a fourth victory is Saturday’s grand slam collision with the last team to achieve that in the Six Nations, Wales. The players know that the hype will be stratospheric. Ferris smiled: “I will try and distance myself as much as possible from you guys (media), from that side of it (the hoopla) and keep myself focused, mentally and physically prepared. It’s going to be a massive encounter.

“I’ll look for a bit of quiet time, a bit of me time over the next couple of days. Then we’ll get down to the hard work that will keep the momentum going.

“We just need to keep working on everything that we have been doing over the last four or five weeks. There’s been so much put into it and to let it all slip on Saturday would be very disappointing. We are going to keep going. We played some good rugby in patches and we will look to add onto that and bring it to Wales.”

Best concurred: “When you play any sport, you want to win things. Through a lot of hard work throughout the season we have put ourselves in a position where we can. It is something that we all crave. It’s all on the line next week, Triple Crown, grand slam, championship.

“It’s exactly where we want to be. If you were told prior to the start of the championship you’d be four from four going into the last weekend, then you couldn’t ask for more.”

Well maybe a fifth win.