Wood keen to look to the future

No emotional baggage, no recourse to history. For Ireland captain Keith Wood, the outcome of tomorrow's match against Scotland will not be governed by previous encounters.

Scotland's unencumbered run of success - save one 6-6 draw - has become a statistical millstone for Irish teams.

But as Wood pointed out: "Half of this team was only eight or nine years old when the sequence (Scotland's run of victories) began. It doesn't matter to them. These guys don't have a monkey on their back.

"It has been a very barren time for us, but in three or four of those matches we should have won. Unfortunately Scotland won them. It is time to start a new trend by winning this one."

Wood spoke briefly about the legacy of the England defeat. "We were hugely disappointed. The team did not play well, took a huge amount of pressure and made fundamental errors. The week after was a pretty touch week. But when you have a bad day at the office, you still have to go back in and get on with it.

"Training has gone well this week and we're really looking forward to the match."

Coach Warren Gatland refused to dwell on the pressure he must feel. "The match is the important thing, this is not about me. I'm pretty excited about what the new caps are going to bring."

Meanwhile, Scotland coach Ian McGeechan confirmed captain John Leslie will miss the match. While the New Zealander has reported fit, McGeechan has decided against taking a gamble, fearing that if the player received another knock on his hip, he could be ruled out for six weeks.

Leslie will travel with the party as a non-playing member. Scotland A skipper Graham Shiel will partner Jamie Mayer in the centre, and scrumhalf Bryan Redpath is named as captain.

It is the only change to the lineup which was defeated by Italy in Rome, although McGeechan admitted Saracens lock Scott Murray is giving cause for concern.

Murray bruised his foot after being stood on at the end of training yesterday, so Glasgow Caledonians second row Jason White has been called in as cover from the Scotland A side.

McGeechan did spring one surprise when he omitted veteran Newcastle star Doddie Weir, who had been expected to start the game in place of team-mate Stuart Grimes. Grimes missed his club's Premiership clash with Leicester last week.

McGeechan instead elected to stick with the men who started in Rome, in direct contrast to Ireland coach Warren Gatland, who has chosen five new caps as his team attempts to recover from their mauling by England at Twickenham.

"Part of our strategy is trust and honesty," explained McGeechan on his decision to stick with the side who performed so badly in Rome.

"If we felt that we were right with the group of players we selected two weeks ago, it doesn't mean we were wrong because we lost the match.

"Certain things happened within the game and we were very disappointed with the final outcome.

"But everybody involved in selection felt we had the correct squad and we are looking at it from a 22-man perspective rather than just the 15 who will start."

SCOTLAND: G Metcalfe (Glasgow Caledonians); S Longstaff (Glasgow Caledonians), J Mayer (Bristol), G Shiel (Edinburgh Reivers), K Logan (Wasps); G Townsend (Brive), B Redpath (Narbonne); T Smith (Brive), G Bulloch (Glasgow Caledonians), M Stewart (Northampton), S Murray (Saracens), S Grimes (Newcastle), M Leslie (Edinburgh Reivers), B Pountney (Northampton), G Simpson (Glasgow Caledonians). Replacements: J McLaren (Bourgoin), D Hodge (Edinburgh Reivers), A Nicol (Glasgow Caledonians), G Graham (Newcastle), R Russell (Saracens), D Weir (Newcastle), S Reid (Narbonne).