Best confident Kilcoyne can step it up against Scotland

For all the confusion surrounding Cian Healy’s three-week suspension, there is one thing that is certain — he will not be playing at loosehead prop for Ireland against Scotland a week on Sunday.

That task looks likely to fall upon the broad shoulders and considerable neck of a 24-year-old Munster forward for whom Heineken Cup rugby was a pipe dream only a year ago, let alone a Six Nations Test start.

Dave Kilcoyne’s career trajectory just keeps inclining and while he may face strong competition from Ulster’s equally in-form loosehead Tom Court to fill the breach vacated by the errant Healy at Murrayfield when the championship resumes, the Limerick man has been next in line since the autumn, and impressing all those around him into the bargain.