'It's about bringing yourself to that dark place' - Andrew Porter

Long gone are the days that front-row forwards could shuffle from scrum to scrum for their day's work and Andrew Porter has hailed Ireland’s backroom staff for bringing the players to that "dark place" needed to compete in the modern game.

In a 48-minute run-out against Scotland last Saturday, Porter put in 12 tackles, and front-row partners Tadhg Furlong and Dan Sheehan made 11 each.

They were also part of the unit that returned a 100% lineout success rate.

Leinster prop Porter says that high work rates are now expected.

"I’m not sure it’s just us that reinvented it but it’s just the way the game is going," he said when asked about what’s expected of modern players.

"It’s an incredibly fast game and given the fact that the ball in play time was so high last week (34m 33 secs) we were just forced to get through a lot more work.

"It’s just how we’ve been conditioned, the way we’ve been prepared, especially in our pre-season.

"Our S&C coaches have prepared us incredibly well physically, but we’ve also been really well mentally prepared by Gary Keegan, our mental-skills coach.

"It's about bringing yourself to that dark place in your mind where you know you are going to have to get through a lot of work but you take a lot of confidence from the guys either side of you, that they’ve been able to get through so much work."

The 27-year-old (above), who will win his 59th cap on Saturday, added that forwards coach Paul O’Connell has been an invaluable source of inspiration to the squad.

"Paulie would be all over a lot of things," he said of the 115-cap former Ireland and Lions second row and captain.

"He’s taken a lot of his experiences from playing.

"He would have known better than a lot of other people what it takes at this level, and