After two desperately disappointing performances against France and Wales in the first two rounds of this season’s RBS 6 Nations, Scotland coach Frank Hadden has rung the changes for this weekend’s encounter at Croke Park.

The final make-up of the team will not include flanker John Barclay, who has failed a fitness test, and Allister Hogg will feature at number seven.

Hadden has already introduced four new players to the side which started against Wales. They are lock Scott MacLeod, blindside flanker Alasdair Strokosch, centre Simon Webster and winger Rory Lamont.

He has also moved Paterson from the wing to stand-off in an effort to reinvigorate Scotland’s ponderous attack.

“Having lost two games in a row and having not played particularly well, things have to change,” said Paterson.

“We said after the Welsh game that we could understand how disappointed the supporters were because we know we are a better side but we didn’t prove that.

"We looked poor and we didn’t perform. We looked worse than we really are. So we need a good performance.

“In many ways we let ourselves down against Wales and we let the travelling support down as well.

“This is another away game and we have to be ready for it. In my opinion, we have very little to lose because we have not performed and we have lost two games, so we can’t be as bad again. We’ll just have to get out there and go for it.”

Paterson insists self-belief is not an issue despite such poor form.

“Confidence is a big part of it, but we all believe in our own ability and with a good week’s training we have nothing to fear. The big challenge for us is to prove everyone wrong,” he added.

“There is still a lot of confidence and there is still a lot of desire to win the last few games in the championship. Our aim is to score tries and to win games, and we’ll definitely go for it this week.”

Paterson went on to suggest that Scotland’s problems could be related to a failure to shrug off the shackles of a tense World Cup campaign, in which most of the competing teams seemed to cope with the pressure of the tournament by playing ultra-conservatively.

“Most of the World Cup games were quite restricted because there was so much at stake, but we seem to have carried on that conservative ebb, which we didn’t plan to,” he explained.

“With that we have had two defeats so we are looking to change quite a few things this weekend.”