Alasdair Strokosch believes Scotland can turn domination in the scrum into a surprise Six Nations victory against grand slam-chasing Ireland on 14 March.
Declan Kidney's in-form side will arrive in Edinburgh expecting to take their fourth step to a long overdue grand slam. But the powerhouse flanker Strokosch insists Scotland will be a tough proposition for Brian O'Driscoll and his men, and pinpointed the scrum as an area in which they could gain the upper hand.
At the turn of the century Scotland's front row was an area of weakness, with only the Lions prop Tom Smith feared by opponents. Now, however, Scotland boast props and a hooker who can justifiably feel they are candidates for the Lions tour this summer.
Euan Murray is likely to be a Test starter while Ross Ford has every chance of joining him on the plane to South Africa. Allan Jacobsen would also have had a good chance, but a shoulder injury in the game against Italy has sidelined him for four months.
His loss is a significant one – Alasdair Dickinson is likely to deputise – but Strokosch is still adamant the Scotland eight have the muscle and strength in depth to get the nudge on the visiting pack and ruin O'Driscoll's grand slam dream.
The Gloucester forward said: "If we defend as well as we did against Italy and dominate in the scrum then we have every chance against Ireland.
"You could feel the domination in the scrum every time against Italy. We could turn it any way we wanted to and push them back which felt good.
"Last season Italy pushed us off the ball but our scrum is a new weapon for us and it's an eight-man thing, not just the front row.
"We had a good sit-down about it in the week before the Italy game and spoke about it because it has become a good weapon for us.
"So rather than say: 'The Italians have got a good scrum and we'll have to work hard against it,' we took the view that it was our weapon.
"If you want to build a squad to go forward you need just that, a squad, not a XV. The players who have been coming in to cover the injuries are just as good as the ones who have had to drop out."
Strokosch, who has been a success for Gloucester since moving from Edinburgh, does not care that Scotland's performance against Italy was not pretty.
He says the pressure was on to get a result and the relief felt at achieving it will help Scotland build on the positives.
He added: "Nobody is ever going to run away with a game against Italy and if you'd said before the game we would win by 20 points, we would have taken it.
"I think collectively we did well against them physically and we've got to take every positive out of the game because we have got a big monkey off our backs. We've lost the past couple of years against Italy and now we have to step on.
"I'm not sure we were desperate ahead of the game but we were pretty annoyed that we hadn't pushed on from where we were in the November Tests.
"It was pretty good in the autumn. We lost the two big games but we played pretty well and to take a step back when we started this tournament was pretty disappointing."
Strokosch is also lifted by the fact Scotland's backs are showing an increasingly sharp edge. In recent seasons the pack has toiled away for little reward, but now the backs appear able to capitalise on the possession chiselled out by the forwards.
He said: "We're scoring more tries than we have done recently and that's encouraging.
"Ireland will be a hard game but we won't be overawed by them even though we know they've got some very good players."
