John O'Sullivan finds Denis Hickie is unfazed by the adverse comments following Ireland's performance against Italy last Sunday

The image is typical Denis Hickie. Sliding sideways to avoid the tackler, in this instance Alessandro Troncon, the Leinster wing accelerates sharply, squeezing between and then away from two more Italian defenders before easing off the gas and allowing his pursuers' momentum to shunt him over the line.

It was the definitive scoring moment at the Stadio Flaminio, going a long way to deciding the outcome in Ireland's favour, much to the relief of team and management. Italy had proved much more than obdurate, particularly up front, where they bossed the breakdown area and caused Ireland serious discomfort.

Ireland escaped with a victory in their opening Six Nations Championship match because the back line, primarily through the individual excellence of captain Brian O'Driscoll and Hickie's predatory instincts, managed to slice open their Italian counterparts on three occasions. It proved enough of a buffer.

The post-match analysis was that Ireland had huffed and puffed but lacked conviction.

But Irish rugby has careered into enough speed-bumps on the road of expectation during Hickie's time with the national side for the player not to be fazed by adverse comment. He is philosophical about last weekend and tries to put it in context.

"It was a case of getting some things right and others wrong. From an attacking perspective we did manage to get into the right positions to strike and we achieved that a number of times.

"On the other hand, we know that we didn't play through the phases as well as we would have liked. All that would have to be tempered by the fact that Italy played a lot better than they might have been expected, better than they did during the November matches.

"We have to up our overall tempo. I don't think we hit the game running in the way we would have liked to and that made it more difficult to get into the match."

Hickie will celebrate his 29th birthday on Sunday and an ideal present would be to break or grab a share of the Irish try-scoring record: with 24 tries he is one behind his good friend O'Driscoll. Not that the Irish wing would be gauche enough to claim it as an ambition. He doesn't really court the spotlight and has plenty of interests outside of the sport.

That's not to say he's ambivalent, far from it. On the pitch and the training paddock, he's just as committed as any of his team-mates, but he does adopt a pragmatic approach. He prefers to ignore things that are outside of his control, focusing instead on what he and the team can influence.

He is adamant that Irish expectation will be more muted as a result of last weekend and ahead of tomorrow's game against Scotland at Murrayfield.

"Expectation can't be the same. Our preparation won't be ideal and there is the fact that Scotland have improved significantly since November.

"They are playing at home which will make a difference too. It's hard to play two games away, back to back, let alone two matches in six days. You wonder who put this fixture list together.

"Some of the analysis around the game is historically based, going back to November or last season's Six Nations.

"But we are playing in the here and now and Scotland nearly beat France in Paris. No matter how the French team plays that's not easy to do. The Scots adopted a clever game plan. They didn't play rugby in their own half. Italy did the same against us and we will face a very similar challenge this week. Home advantage is exactly that, an advantage."

The doubt surrounding the fitness of O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy won't impinge upon the team's mental conditioning, apart from the obvious desire to see the two take the pitch.

"We're making contingency plans, trying out other combinations. It is very rare for a team to go through the Six Nations without injury. If the two guys don't make it then we'll have prepared for that eventuality.

"Obviously we are hoping that they do."

Much has been made of Ireland's aversion to the tag of favourites, but while Hickie points out that it will probably galvanise Scotland, he maintains it's not something upon which the players dwell.

"We are playing so many more big games. It doesn't really matter what's said beforehand."

The time for talking is over.