Ireland comfortably won their opening Six Nations championship match at the Aviva Stadium yesterday, taking their time to get going before beating Scotland 28-6 as they look to put last year’s poor campaign firmly behind them.

Ireland, who last season endured their worst Six Nations in 14 years, showed signs of the rugby that brought them come so close to beating New Zealand in November with tries from Rob Kearney, Andrew Trimble and Jamie Heaslip easing them home.

“We learned a lot in the November series and if we can make this place a bit of a fortress, we can go places,” Heaslip, who took over as captain after illness ruled Paul O’Connell out of the game shortly before kickoff, said in a pitchside interview.

“It was tough losing Paulie this morning, he’s an unbelievable leader but we’ve got some great leaders in the team and we played with a lot of passion today.”

Try-scorer Kearney said that it was important for Ireland to start their campaign on a winning note.

“To get off to a winning start is something that every team wants to do, so we’re really happy with that,” Kearney told BBC Sport.

The hosts’ lead stood at 11-3 at half-time but it was a much-improved Ireland that came out in the second period and that fact was soon reflected on the scoreboard.

“We said we needed to go after them. We got a good try just before the half which gave us a little bit of breathing space,” Kearney added.

“We just felt that if we kept keeping phases and attacking them, we could keep building on it.”

Next fixtures
Saturday: 15.30 Ireland vs Wales; 18.00 Scotland vs England.
Sunday: 16.00 France vs Italy.