There was a huge amount of hype going into Saturday night's game because Ireland could have possibly been knocked out despite our good start to the tournament.
In reality, we’ve had Scotland’s number over the last five years at least and from an Irish perspective, it was another complete performance, particularly in the first half.
Our set-piece was really clinical, both scrum and line-out, with us getting a 100 per cent success rate in the latter.
Iain Henderson did a fantastic job with calling that and bringing a bit more speed to how we executed our line-out.
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In attack, we were incredibly clinical, every opportunity we got in that Scottish half in the first period, we came away with points even when they threw everything at us defensively in the first quarter of the game.
We had them mentally broken after 20 minutes and it was really important that we were able to rotate key players, such as getting Jack Crowley on for Johnny Sexton.
Scotland are a team that plays with great ambition but ultimately it’s been a disappointing World Cup for them, having lost by more than 15 points to both South Africa and Ireland, which were the two games that they were ultimately going to be judged on.
They were very unlucky with the pool that they were drawn in and I think that if they were in England's or Wales’s pools, I would have expected them to make the quarter-finals.
It would be an unfair reflection on Scotland’s stats among the world’s elite rugby sides to see their elimination as a failure.
For Scotland now, it is going to be about trying to find balance in their gameplan. We love that ambition of trying to play wide-to-wide, but sometimes you win rugby matches by knowing when to do that and when to play the territory game.
It is a concern that we picked up a few injuries during the game. Mack Hansen has been brilliant for us down that right-hand side and I’d say it’s unlikely for him to pull through as it looked like he tore his calf.
I think if Keith Earls shakes off his hamstring issue by next week, he’ll come straight in and start on the right wing and we’re lucky to have someone of Keith’s experience come in for a World Cup Quarter-final.
Iain Henderson really had a great game and I think he’ll come in and start again next week after James Ryan appears to have picked up a wrist injury, with Ryan Baird maybe coming onto the bench.
It’s tough getting these injuries going into the quarter-finals but this Irish squad has more depth than we’ve ever had and in the camp, it’s not going to feel disjointed, I think they’re going to have total belief in the guys that are coming in to start and those who will come on off the bench.
New Zealand next week is going to be a great challenge. I think a lot of people wrote off the All Blacks after their poor performance against France but they definitely built their way back into the competition.
I thought they were particularly impressive against Italy, and how they dismantled them. However, from an Irish perspective, I think we left a very deep scar when we went over to New Zealand last summer and won the series test over there.
That series is going to be playing in the minds of the Kiwis. Traditionally, you’d have said that Ireland don't perform well in World Cups but this time round it’s different.
We’ve got proven form against New Zealand and I think this Irish side are going to have total confidence going into next week.
I think our fate is in our own hands as far as next week’s match is concerned.
The two key areas that are crucial to beating the All Blacks are the breakdown and the kicking battle.
In their World Cup opener against France, the French turned New Zealand over a lot in the wide channels and we also saw that New Zealand tried to win that game with their kicking strategy and that didn’t work for them.
If Ireland can be as good as we were on the ground in the breakdown against Scotland and come up with as many turnovers against New Zealand, then I think that we’ll have gone a long way to winning the game.
Our kicking game has to be on point because there’s going to be a huge amount of kicking in this game, that’s how New Zealand play under Ian Foster and Joe Schmidt.
Overall, we’ve had a really successful pool stage for Ireland. To come out of the toughest group in the competition with four wins from as many games is everything we could have hoped for and more.
Now it’s about putting out our best-ever performance against New Zealand and making Irish rugby history.
