This means the Scottish camp is in buoyant mood as they host Ireland on Sunday but history is against Brown and his team-mates with Scotland not winning back-to-back games in the competition for more than a decade.

But the flanker insists there is no better time to change that than the present.

"We're expecting an incredibly tough match but you have to back up every single week," Brown said.

"There's no point in having one good week and then not doing it the following week.

"It's something we've spoken about and we're working as hard as we can to ensure we put in a really good performance on Sunday.

"I can see the players' individual skill levels improving all the time. If we're all improving individually then that puts us in a better place as a team."