Further challenges lie ahead in the form of Wales and England so while Ross has been satisfied with their performances so far, he insists there’s plenty more hard work ahead of them.

"I'm pleased with the way we scrummaged,” he said. “We've achieved what we set out to achieve.

"There were a couple of decisions we weren't too happy about. We felt we can definitely do better than that.

"We'll be looking at that but in terms of performance we're certainly getting better.

"Against Italy we didn't we were rewarded but we came out of the French game pretty well."

Less convincing has been Ireland’s discipline. The 12 penalties were conceded against Scotland did not cost them victory; the nine they did against France did in their 25-22 loss.

But Ross believes they can put those problems right before the visit the Millennium Stadium in the fourth round of matches.

He said: "We're going in the right direction but it's frustrating that we win the try count 3-0 but are still fighting for the result with 10 minutes left.

"We're getting there but there's certainly more work to do before we face Wales in Cardiff."