James Lowe predicts a Murrayfield "cracker" for the Triple Crown after catching the latest evidence of Scotland's revival.
The Ireland winger got home from Rome on Sunday afternoon, plonked himself in front of the TV and watched France come under serious pressure from the Scots before the hosts ultimately prevailed.
The results leaves Ireland with the only 100% record in the championship and on course for the Triple Crown and more, with the Grand Slam there to be won with the trip to Edinburgh on Sunday week and home collision with England six days later still to come.
READ MORE: Craig Casey reveals how close he came to missing first Six Nations start for Ireland
"I sat down for the second half, Scotland were down two or three scores and then in the last few minutes there was what, four points in it," said Lowe.
Gael Fickou's late try killed the comeback but the 30-year-old was impressed. "They’re a lot more well-rounded," he said in regard to Gregor Townsend's side.
"They’re an outstanding outfit, to go to France and push that team that far for that long is credit to where they’ve come.
"Finn Russell is the main playmaker and he’s pulling the strings very well. His attacking kicking game is exceptional and you can definitely tell he’s been in France with his style of play."
Lowe describes Racing's skilful though inconsistent no 10 as "fearless and pretty...you could say loose, but he's outstanding with the ball in hand.
"His ability to pump-fake at the line and step, transfer, offload...his passing game is very, very impressive and then his attacking kicking game on top of that, it's very southern hemisphere, Richie Mo’unga-esque.
“He’s not the only problem we have to deal with - he’s just a pretty big piece in their attacking system.
"He’s even putting some shoulders in - I don’t know how much I enjoy seeing that from a 10 but we'll have a plan to nullify some of the things he is very good at and where he will try to expose us.
"Murrayfield should be a cracker.”
Lowe played a central role in Ireland's exciting attacking play in the first half against Italy - after dropping a golden first minute chance for his ninth try in 18 Test appearances.
Racing for the corner, Lowe was tackled by Ange Capuozzo but tried to touch down one-handed, only to lose control.
"Ah yeah, that was a blow up by me," he said. "Look, I knew straight away, I pretty much threw the ball on the ground. I thought I had it and yeah, it was just silly from me."
It was Ireland's defence that was put under real stress, however, and Lowe admitted there would be a proper review.
"Obviously disappointing to leak a few too many points, a few too many line breaks, especially in the middle of us, you never want that to happen," he said.
“Yeah, a couple of different combinations in the midfield but that doesn’t matter.
"You’ve got an international calibre midfield pairing there (Stuart McCloskey and Bundee Aki) and I’m sure we’ll look at why we did get picked apart a couple of times.
"We’ll have a pretty intense training session against the 20s on Thursday, which we will use for a few different things.
“There's always room for improvement and I don’t think there's any one person or any one thing to change.
"We just all need to get better together and understand the page that we are on defensively so we don’t concede the easy metres that we did.
"Hopefully we can keep on winning."
READ NEXT:
Anna Geary an 'emotional wreck' and 'blown away' by kind messages after announcing pregnancy
FAI policy on trans women revealed in wake of LGFA green light
Golf star Rory McIlroy wanted as his Ryder Cup partner for 20 years joins LIV Golf
Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts
