Scotland’s last-ditch defence held firm however and Ireland could only take a 3-0 lead in at half-time before Laidlaw kicked his side to victory in the second half with the visitors again guilty of failing to convert good chances.

Debutant fly-half Paddy Jackson missed three kicks to compound Ireland’s woes but Heaslip believes he made the right calls.

“Just where we were with the momentum of the game I thought they were the right decisions,” said Heaslip.

“We were applying a lot of pressure and we took the kicking opportunities that were right in front of the posts and the other ones I thought it was best to go for the corner.

“It was that we weren’t accurate with our opportunities and they took theirs which was disappointing. We made a few line breaks and applied a lot of pressure but we weren’t accurate and that was disappointing.

“Even though they came back into the game I felt confident that we could hang onto the ball and get the territory and get the turnovers but I think they held onto the ball quite well and we didn’t help ourselves with some mistakes.

“In the last five or ten minutes we applied a lot of pressure but we didn’t take the opportunities.”