Paul O'Connell: Emotional intelligence key to winning run

Knockout rugby starts here, and Paul O'Connell hopes it lasts a while.

While Ireland effectively head into their Pool B decider with Scotland on Saturday with an eight-point head start, the meeting of the Six Nations rivals amounts to what those in the NBA world would call a 'Play-In' game for the quarters.

It's the first of what Ireland hope will be four games in consecutive weeks leading up to the final in Paris on 28 October.

Winning has become their habit in the last two years; their current run of 16 victories in a row is already an Irish record, and just two behind the all-time record for a Tier 1 nation. With every win, the pressure and scrutiny grows on the outside.

Dealing with that expectation has been an Achilles heel for Ireland down the years, with the emotional energy of one win not replicated the following week.

There's only so much emotion to go round week to week, so why not use less of it?

"I think being able to not rely massively on emotions is a big part of it," O'Connell says of his side's winning run.

"It's always a big strength of ours how much the lads love playing for Ireland, how important the history of the team is, you would have seen that during the Six Nations where we had a great week before we played France where we had a discussion about the anthems. The lads love playing for each other, they love playing for Ireland, they love pulling on the jersey and what it means and all that.

"But that's the icing on the cake now rather than the whole cake."

Head coach Andy Farrell has received huge credit for how welcoming he is of challenges to his players, whether it's stretching them to capacity on their five-game tour of New Zealand, or embracing the chaos of late injuries on gameday.

But O'Connell says