The Irish will be without injured centres Brian ODriscoll and Gordon DArcy, who are being tipped as a possible Lions midfield partnership for the tour of New Zealand this summer.

Scotland therefore appear to have a much-improved chance against the visitors at Murrayfield of building on last weekends heartening RBS 6 Nations Championship performance in France.

Even so, Paterson knows there is more to the Irish than their first-choice centre pairing.

Individual players have to be given a platform from their team-mates, said the experienced Edinburgh man.

The attention is always going to be on Brian ODriscoll and Gordon DArcy - and they are wonderful players.

But the Ireland team are also strong and hard-working from front to back and have five big ball-carriers in the back row. They are also very strong at half-back.

Their individual players are capable of doing anything and something special, but they are very well-balanced side too.

I thoroughly enjoy the way Ireland play. They have been pretty exciting in the last two or three seasons and they are one of the best teams in the world at this minute.

They have got power and are well-organised, and its going to be another tough game without a shadow of a doubt.

The versatile Paterson does not expect Ireland to be thrown off course by the question marks which have surrounded the fitness of ODriscoll and DArcy and have been answered in the negative over the past 24 hours.

Any uncertainty wouldnt affect their preparation at all, he said.

Everybody will know what theyre doing. They have so much strength in depth and they have the talent to come in and be equally as dangerous.