Mike Blair content with Scotland A return despite loss

The home side outscored Sean Lineen's side by five tries to three and led 17-0 at the break.

Blair said: "It was a tough first half and they made a real mess of our breakdown and, with the opportunities they got they were really clinical, and that was a feature of the game.

"We had four or five clear cut opportunities, a couple were brought back for forward passes, a couple of offloads five or 10 metres out didn't go to hand, whereas the Wolfhounds took their opportunities when ever they had them."

"We took to long to get into the game, that was my first run out and I was expecting to be blowing after 20 minutes but we didn't have the ball so it was a frustrating first half.

"They had a good driving line out so, when we put them under pressure, they seemed to find it easy to get out and turn the pressure back on us."

Each side scored three tries in the second half and Blair believes Scotland could have sneaked a win, especially as the Irish had two players sin binned.

He said: "We were able to get back into the game later on and it would have been a miraculous comeback. We had a lot of good patterns in the game but they were just a bit more clinical than us."

One aspect of the game where Scotland enjoyed success was at the scrum but Blair thought they could have made more of the advantage they had at the set piece.

"We have a very strong front row with Euan Murray, Jon Welsh, who has been making great strides with Glasgow in the Magners League, and Dougie Hall who is an experienced international himself, we knew we were going to have dominance in that area and we were slighted disappointed we didn't make more of that."

"I think the penalty count until the last 20 minutes was fairly even and that is really hard to take when you felt you've got dominance there."

"We got a penalty try at the end but was it a little too late."

It was Blair's first game since damaging ligaments in his ankle during the autumn and he was happy with how he came through the 56 minutes he was on the pitch.

"It's my first game in three months and there were no ill effects."

Tries from captain Chris Henry and centre Fergus McFadden plus seven points for the boot of Ulster's Ian Humphreys put Ireland 17-0 up at the break.

McFadden, scrum half Isaac Boss and Leicester Tigers winger Johnny Murphy got the home side's touchdowns after the break while Scotland replied with tries from flanker James Eddie and replacement Mark Robertson before they were awarded a penalty try.