IRELAND HAVE DONE what they set out to do in Edinburgh, beating hosts Scotland 10 – 40 to take over top spot in the Six Nations table.

However, England still hold the honour of closing this year’s tournament and so still cast a shadow over Ireland’s victory as they kick off knowing a 26-point win will be enough to claim the Championship at Ireland’s expense.

Schmidt, won’t be putting himself through the agony of waiting to find out.

“To be honest, we’ve got the dinner now. I’m going to try to switch away from it and not watch it. Someone will let me know [the scoreline] and I’ll be delighted or broken,” the Kiwi told RTE post-match.

“We felt we built on a number of things things in the second 40 in Wales. We wanted to stay dynamic, try to stay focused on the process and hopefully the points would look after themselves.

We got a couple of tries in each half and kept pushing the scoreboard. The players did incredibly well. It’s just really awkward. You win in Murrayfield with a 30-point differential and nobody’s celebrating.

“There were some good tries taken. There was some very good defence as well. I think in the first half we spent a lot of time in and around our own 22 or 40 metres out from our own line. To get out and get those couple of tries and build scoreboard pressure was a release for us.”

Here’s how we rated Ireland in their swashbuckling four-try win over Scotland

Four-try Ireland move into strong position before England face France