John has kept faith with the XV that was beaten 27-6 at home to England but the head coach was unsatisfied with the nature of the defeat and has demanded better against Ireland who are currently top of the table on points difference.

And although they could do the Auld Enemy a big favour with victory against Ireland, John is only concerned with an improvement from his own troops.

He said: “Ireland are a good side and favourites for the championship. Credit to them, we respect them but we certainly don't fear them.

“They've made Athlone a bit of a fortress. All the big guns have been scalped there but we're going to concentrate on the lessons learned through experience against England and go there with a real hunger.

“We fed England points and let them get away from us. Analysis showed that all the points they gained were all avoidable, self inflicted and unfortunately very costly, however, we were by far the better side in the second-half and we controlled the tempo.”

15 Tom Brown (Edinburgh Accies)

14 Oliver Grove (Worcester Warriors)
13 James Johnstone (Currie)
12 Alex Dunbar (Selkirk)
11 Dougie Fife (Currie)

10 Alex Blair (Edinburgh Accies)
9 Alex Black (Leeds Carnegie)

1 Nicky Little (Hawick)
2 Alun Walker (Currie)
3 Colin Phillips (Stewart's-Melville)
4 Matthew Reid (Heriot's)
5 Robert Harley (West of Scotland)
6 Michael Maltman (Heriot's)
8 Stuart McInally (Watsonians)
7 David Denton (Edinburgh Accies)

Replacements
16 Lindsey Gibson (Melrose)
17 George Hunter (Glasgow Hawks)
18 Aaron Hall (Newcastle Falcons)
19 Callum Stidston-Nott (London Scottish)
20 Kris Hamilton (Caithness)
21 Matthew Scott (Currie)
22 Duncan Weir (Glasgow Hawks)