Greig Laidlaw aware Scotland must hit the ground running against Ireland to keep Six Nations target in sight

Laidlaw believes the time is right for Scotland to grind out the hard victories as well as the easy ones, and he tells Jack de Menezes there's no place better to do that than at BT Murrayfield

Grieg Laidlaw wants Scotland to make a fast start to this year's Six Nations tournament (Getty)

Greig Laidlaw insists it’s imperative that Scotland capitalise on their home advantage this weekend and end Ireland’s Six Nations Grand Slam hopes at the first hurdle if they are to enjoy a successful campaign themselves.

With trip to Paris and London on the horizon, Scotland captain Laidlaw knows that hopes of beating last year’s return of two victories will lie on picking up at least two wins from their three home matches at Murrayfield.

The scrum-half will lead his side out for his third campaign as captain in the championship’s curtain-raiser this Saturday, and his experience tells him that if the Scots are to enjoy a successful championship, then a fast start against the Irish is a must.

“There’s excitement, that’s got to be the overriding factor in this, to get excited to pull on the jersey and to play at our home stadium in front of our own people and it’s brilliant, the crowd at Murrayfield, we need to harness that,” Laidlaw tells The Independent. “It’s our field, and we’re going out there to look after it.

“Every game is a chance to send out a statement. To credit Ireland, alongside England they’re the form side in the Northern Hemisphere. I think their results have shown that, so they’ll be in a good place and I’m sure they’re full of confidence themselves coming into the game. But again we’re delighted we’re at home and want to put our best foot forwards.”

Ireland and Scotland enjoyed successful autumn campaigns, the former beating New Zealand for the first time in their history and the latter beating Argentina, Georgia and losing narrowly to Australia by a single point.

Now though, Laidlaw is fully aware that the time is right in their development to step up to the next level and grind out the victories that currently end in narrow defeats. Three times last year Scotland lost by less than a converted try, but given that the performances are being produced on a regular basis, Laidlaw says the next stage of development is nailing down the results.

“We’ve got to worry about ourselves, we believe our form is pretty good as well,” he adds. “We’re still disappointed about that Australia game to be honest, we felt we played good enough rugby to win it, but we didn’t and that’s really where this team is. We’re on the brink of winning every single game we play, and it’s then about the tight games and how you eke out the wins and I think we’re starting to get there and develop players who can play in big games and handle big moments.

“Again, to use November as something to measure it against, our performance against Australia was brilliant but we fell short by just one point because we probably switched off at a couple of key moments. The week after, we probably didn’t play to our best against Argentina but managed to grind out a win, and that’s the pleasing thing that when we’re not right 100 per cent, we’ve still got enough to win games.”

Pre-tournament talk has already led to the Six Nations climax in Dublin, where Ireland will host England, being billed as a Grand Slam decider, but 18th March remains a very long way away. Grand Slam dreams have been shattered long before the final weekend in the past, and Laidlaw stresses that in a tournament that is only five matches long for each team, “it’s crucial that you get off to a good start”.

Scotland captain Laidlaw alongside the Six Nations trophy at the tournament launch (Getty)

However, he does not believe that the attention being given to the final game will result in Ireland underestimating Scotland, and suggested talk of a Grand Slam decider will not be coming from inside the Irish camp.

“I certainly don’t think Ireland will [underestimate us]to be honest, I think Joe Schmidt is a very clever coach and I think it’s more outside Ireland’s group that are talking about that last,” he says. “We’re under no illusions that they’ll be coming over here, trying to do a professional job and they’ll be well set because everybody wants to get the tournament underway in the best possible way.

Laidlaw will captain Scotland for the third time in the Six Nations (BT Sport)

“We can only take it one game at a time in this tournament and I think that Ireland game is massive for us, and we understand that. We’re away to France the second week but we beat the French last year and the last time we were in France we lost by three.

“So we respect France, but it’s a team we know we can do well against. But we certainly won’t look past the first game, because there’s so much on it.”

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