Hooker Best skippered the side for the first time in an RBS 6 Nations clash - having led them against United States and Canada on the 2009 summer tour - with captain Paul O'Connell injured and regular skipper Brian O'Driscoll out of the 2012 RBS 6 Nations.

And he celebrated the honour in the perfect fashion with the first of four tries - the others coming from Eoin Reddan, Andrew Trimble and Fergus McFadden while Jonathan Sexton kicked 12 points.

Scotland more than held their own in the first half on Ireland soil with a try from Richie Gray and three Greg Laidlaw penalties but they failed to trouble the scoreboard after the break as they went down to a fourth defeat of the campaign.

Andy Robinson's side silenced the home crowd as early as the fourth minute when Laidlaw kicked the first points of the game after Cian Healy was penalised for not binding.

Their pressure continued with Ireland unable to wrestle possession off the visitors and it was 6-0 when Scotland No. 10 Laidlaw kicked a second penalty on ten minutes.

However Ireland then took centre stage with skipper Best getting the perfect possible start to the game with his second RBS 6 Nations score of 2012.

Sexton took the bold decision to kick a penalty to the corner. Best's throw was fielded by Donnacha Ryan, offloaded to Peter O'Mahony and then back into the hands of the skipper who bulldozed over Mike Blair to cross.

Sexton curled his conversion through the posts from out wide and Ireland were 7-6 to the good. That lead was stretched to four points on 24 minutes when Scotland prop Allan Jacobsen was penalised at scrum time and Sexton slotted the resulting penalty.

The visitors showed their intent - and their line-out supremacy - by kicking two penalties to the corner going in search of a try.

However some Ireland cynicism kept the Scots out and Laidlaw eventually lost patience and kicked a penalty to reduce the margin to a point.

All the visitors' good work was undone by returning scrum-half Reddan's opportunistic score just after the half hour mark - darting over from close range after some lax Scottish defending, Sexton converting.

But a see-saw first-half saw the momentum go back to the visitors on 37 minutes when Richie Gray burst through a Tommy Bowe challenge before dummying Rob Kearney to cross for his first try for the Scots.

The previously dead-eyed Laidlaw unluckily saw his conversion come back off the post however just when it looked like the Scots had the upper hand Ireland's clinical first-half continued. Trimble crossed in the corner, after a missed tackle by Lee Jones, for their third score to stretch the margin to eight points, Sexton missing the conversion.

The hosts continued where they left off after the break and thought they had scored a fourth try when Sexton caught the Scots napping with a cross-kick out wide when they were expecting one at goal.

Tommy Bowe collected the kick and thought he had got the ball down but the television match official ruled in the visitors' favour.

The free-flowing first-half was replaced by a more pragmatic air after the break with a long delay when Scotland wing Jones suffered a nasty looking head injury further slowing things down.

Ireland's supremacy in the scrum helped them close the game out with the first points of the second half coming from a Sexton penalty on 71 minutes to make it 25-14.

And the game was ended as a contest when Scotland centre Max Evans was sin-binned for bringing down Keith Earls off the ball as he looked to run on to his own kick through.

Ireland made the extra man count when replacement McFadden darted over from close range and Sexton converted to settle it and move the hosts to second in the RBS 6 Nations table.