‘Quietly confident’ Joe Schmidt aware of pitfalls

Ireland flew into Edinburgh last night with what head coach Joe Schmidt described as a “quiet confidence” that the players he will send into the RBS 6 Nations fray at Murrayfield tomorrow can ignore the hype surrounding Scotland and continue their winning ways.

Vern Cotter’s team may have only beaten three tier-one sides in the past 12 months — Italy, France and Argentina — and have not defeated Ireland in the Championship with his fellow New Zealander Schmidt at the helm.

However, all the talk in the build-up to this season’s opening game has been about how good the Scots are.