O'Connell impressed in the captaincy stakes as he rallied his team-mates after Scotland had taken a 8-0 lead in the early stages at Murrayfield.

The Munster lock even scored the crucial try just before half-time to set O'Sullivan's men on the way to the 40-13 victory.

But he is refusing to get carried away, especially with visits from England and then France to Dublin and then a trip to Cardiff to face resurgent Wales.

O'Connell, a shoe-in for the Lions second row in New Zealand this summer, said: ''We are not remotely thinking about Grand Slams at the moment. It is one game at a time, and we have some massive challenges ahead of us.''

''The scoreline against Scotland might suggest that we won easily, but that is far from the whole story.

''They really got in our faces in the first 20 minutes, and they might have scored more points in that period, so it was a case of us striving to seize the initiative and eventually we scored some good tries.''

England can also expect to face another test of their ability to stop a rolling maul, after Andy Robinson's side were stretched in that area of the game in the second half of their defeat to France.

In the latter stages in particular, with England desperate for quick possession, Bernard Laporte's pack controlled the ball in maul situations - even on a couple of occasions utilising the 'truck and trailer' method so popular under Woodward and his on-field lieutenant Neil Back.

O'Connell said: ''We work a lot on using the rolling maul and it went well against Scotland. It shows you don't have to flash it wide to make ground.''