Johnson has described his side as unpredictable and with a wounded beast in town this weekend – Ireland lost narrowly 12-6 to England two weeks ago – the Scotland boss has called for urgent improvements.

The Australian compared Scotland’s performances so far in this season’s RBS 6 Nations like an episode of popular American TV drama CSI – and called for more effort and energy against the Irish this weekend.

“How we played against Italy won’t be good enough to beat Ireland,” said Johnson, speaking in the Scotsman. “Ireland is a quality defensive unit for a start – a world-class defensive unit. So we’ve got to take it up another peg or two.

“The fact is we’ve got to keep improving. We’ve got to keep getting better.

“We’re showing improvement at it, but, at the end of this campaign, I’ll still be saying the same because it’s determining so many fixtures. That area is determining our ability to play the way we want to play.

“I keep saying it and you may as well write the next three or four weeks’ speech.

“It’s like CSI (Crime Scene Investigation). Week one, all we left were fingerprints.

“The second week (against Italy) we had eye witnesses to the event, so there was improvement, but, in the third week (Sunday), we still want to be there when the police arrive. How’s that?”