Scotland hooker Fraser Brown impressed with Irish adaptability

Scotland hooker Fraser Brown felt Ireland showed their resilience in how they dealt with the challenge of losing two two hookers to injury within 50 minutes on Sunday.

Ireland kept their Grand Slam dream alive with a 22-7 win at Murrayfield despite losing Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher to injury and Cian Healy and Josh van der Flier filling in in the scrum and at lineout time respectively.

"Ireland adapted very well to losing two hookers in the game," said Brown, who came on for the closing quarter.

"It takes something (special) for a side to be able to adapt their game that well and come out with a win.

"The fact they extended their lead after both their hookers went off, they controlled that situation really well. I’m disappointed we didn’t put more pressure on them though, particularly at set-pieces."

Brown is adamant Scotland will be able to rouse themselves for their final match at home to Italy on Saturday.

Although they no longer have a chance of the title, the Scots can land the consolation prize of a top-three finish if they win on Saturday.

Brown hopes they can deliver a big performance to cap a campaign that promised so much after the opening two games.

"It will be pretty easy to pick ourselves up because we’ve got another big game on Saturday," he said. "We started the championship really well, with two victories.

"We played really well in parts against France in Paris and did well to work our way back into the game and again against Ireland we played well in the first half and put them under a lot of pressure.

"We know the quality we have within our squad and how well we can play but the next part of the puzzle is putting it all together to produce performances week after week for 80 minutes.

"It’s important to win on