Denis Hickie (Ireland) was named man-of-the-match

Hickie acknowledged that the Irish had been forced to "knuckle down" after going behind with 15 minutes left.

"We're happy to get out of here with a win. It was a bizarre kind of game and they made it very tough," said Hickie.

"We were not very disciplined and we missed a few chances. But we're delighted to win the Triple Crown."

Interview: Man-of-the-match Denis Hickie

Interview: Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan

Hickie insisted that the Triple Crown remained an important trophy for Ireland despite their increasing prominence on the world stage.

"And I wasn't playing in the other two Triple Crowns over the last three years so I'm pretty happy to be involved in this one.

"We haven't got so far ahead of ourselves that the Triple Crown doesn't mean anything to us."

Our discipline was poor Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan

Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan said his team had "dug a hole" for itself in the game before climbing back out to claim victory in the closing 10 minutes.

"The important thing is that when we went two scores down with 10 minutes (left) on the clock, we didn't panic," he added.

"We kept our composure and played our way back into the game and we won it deservedly.

"It wasn't vintage rugby but credit where credit is due. Scotland produced a big performance.

"It was pretty much what we expected from Scotland. They were going to bounce back from the Italian match and they played out of their skins today.

"We had some good line breaks at times and we needed to finish them off and we didn't. To compound that, our discipline was poor."

O'Sullivan said that he didn't believe the shoulder injury sustained by Brian O'Driscoll in the closing stages was serious.