Porter: Painting positive pictures key for Irish scrum

In the scrum, perception can often be reality.

After Ireland's scrum struggled against France in Paris in last season's Six Nations, they found themselves on the wrong side of referee Mathieu Raynal a few weeks later against England at Twickenham, who heavily penalised them at the setpiece.

After the game, their feedback from World Rugby was that many of those decisions should have gone the other way, but the seed of Ireland's scrum struggles had been planted earlier in the competition, and when they were continually going backwards at Twickenham, it didn't matter whether or not those decisions were correct.

In recent months, Leinster's scrum has also found itself under pressure, with forwards specialist Robin McBryde agreeing that work needs to be done in that area, and with the bulk of Ireland's pack coming from the province, it's vital any creases in their setup get ironed out before the tournament.

Among the games they found themselves under strain was last month's BKT United Rugby Championship win against Ospreys, who provide three front row forwards to this weekend's Welsh squad, across the starters and replacements.

Painting a positive picture for this week's referee Karl Dickson will be an important element, not just for this Saturday against Wales, but also for their remaining four games.

"It can, I suppose it does," Andrew Porter said, when asked if a team's reputation can precede them, particularly at the scrum.

"That's the huge thing about this tournament, you rely hugely on momentum, and we'll need a huge performance from this first game to carry momentum for the rest of the tournament. It's very cut throat, it's small margins at the end of the day, you're coming up against such quality teams. You just have to be