YOUNG GUNS BOOST BOD

It was Saturday, June 30, 2001. It was at The Gabba. It was the first Test of the British and Irish Lions against Australia. It was also the moment Brian O'Driscoll announced himself to the rugby world with that burst of electric acceleration and short shuffle of his feet.

O'Driscoll was 22-years-old, one year older than his out-half Paddy Jackson and Luke Marshall are today, when he bamboozled the best defence in world rugby that evening.

Another way of looking at it is that Jackson was nine and Marshall 10 when O'Driscoll produced that magical piece of play.

Now, there is a view out there that the impact of Jackson and Marshall will impart a new attacking lease on life for O'Driscoll. They do bring different skills to those that were previously in their place.

In particular, the distribution of Marshall from hand and boot will plant a seed of doubt in Scotland's defence as to what exactly Ireland will do with the ball.

"He is quite a rounded footballer," said O'Driscoll.

"He does a lot of things well. He carries hard. He tackles well. He is a nice distributor. He has got a good kicking game.

"It is nice to have all those options and opportunities and he'll make the relevant decisions when he gets the ball. If it's not on, he has that option of being able to punish them if they don't cover grass."

O'Driscoll was keen to emphasise how the Grand Slam may have gone, but there is still a Six Nations Championship out there for the taking.

"I saw Wales talking about them being in the hunt for the Championship. We are as much in the hunt if we can go and win three games in a row," he claimed.

"The problem now, since '09, is that if you win the first game, everyone starts talking Grand Slam. Now that's gone, we definitely can relax a little bit.

"There is still a lot to be played for a team who want to win four out of five games."

The former Ireland captain was busy with the process of becoming a first-time father on the day that England came to Dublin and left with a 12-6 victory, their first here in the Six Nations for 10 years.

"When you lose, in those fairly tight circumstances, it is not a catastrophe, just as much as when you win by small margins, you're not the finished article.

"You don't have to completely have an autopsy on where everything went wrong. We just made a few more errors than them. We didn't play quite as smart as them and we weren't quite as clinical as they were.

"There was only a small group of us, 15 or 16 I think in camp last week. Our days were fantastic. There was a great energy, a good buzz.

"I don't think it has changed the psyche at all as to how people feel.

"There is a really good energy here and an enthusiasm to try and put things right."

Scotland: S Hogg; S Maitland, S Lamont, M Scott, T Visser; R Jackson, G Laidlaw; R Grant, R Ford, G Cross, J Hamilton, R Gray, R Harley, K Brown, J Beattie.

Ireland: R Kearney; C Gilroy, B O'Driscoll, L Marshall, K Earls; P Jackson, C Murray; T Court, R Best, M Ross, D O'Callaghan, D Ryan, P O'Mahony, S O'Brien, J Heaslip (capt).