PAUL O’CONNELL insists Ireland are not getting ahead of themselves — in spite of being on the brink of Six Nations glory.

Ireland are in pole position following bonus-point triumphs over Wales, France and Italy in their opening three games.

It leaves Andy Farrell’s men in the hunt for the Triple Crown, a Championship and the ultimate prize of a Grand Slam heading into Sunday week’s clash with Scotland at Murrayfield.

O’Connell was a three-time Six Nations winner as a player — so the forwards coach understands the ambition the current group holds.

Yet the Limerick native also acknowledges that there is a long road still left to travel in their 2023 campaign.

O’Connell said: “We want to win the competition and we’d like to win the last two games.

“We have said that plenty of times but I don’t think we have put it up there in shining lights or anything. Favouritism is something the boys are well aware that we have in most games now.

“We talk about it a little bit. But we don’t pay a whole lot of attention to it. We pay attention to getting better.

“It’s funny, Andy said about the France game — if you watch the France game on TV and you just sit down and you just watch it, it’s amazing.

“It’s great to watch and you feel great about Ireland.

“When you’re a coach and you watch it ten times, you see 400 things you need to fix, you get really excited about how much better we can be.

“That’s the good thing about our group — we review a lot and the players take a lot of ownership in terms of reviewing.

“They see how much more we need to do.”

Ireland went all of 61 years without winning a Grand Slam but are now seeking to win their third in the space of just 14 years. O’Connell was a virtual ever-present in the second row in 2009 as Declan Kidney guided his green army to a clean sweep of Championship honours in his first season as head coach.

While there are plenty of similarities between the two groups — Cian Healy, Keith Earls and Johnny Sexton were all part of the wider squad for that 2009 Six Nations — O’Connell identified a key difference that illustrates how far the game has progressed in more recent times.

‘Paulie’ continued: “Maybe in 2009 you kind of feel you have a chance of winning and so you start cramming a little bit. You start trying to catch up on some of the work you should have been doing four months before or five months before.

“These guys, they’re very conscientious about getting better. A lot of them go on holidays to go to places where the gym is.

“They pick their holiday resort based on what the gym was like. So they all have SportsCode on their iPads.

“They are good guys, so much so when they get stuff wrong, as a coach you kind of feel like it’s your fault rather than their fault.

“I think these guys aren’t cramming these last few weeks, they’re in a good place.

“We just need to make sure that mentally we’re in a good place when we walk out on the field in the next game against Scotland.

“That’s the most important thing and switching off is an important part of that.”

Next week’s game will be a case of deja vu for O’Connell as the 2009 Championship also saw Ireland facing a fourth-round trip to Scotland. They did not have it all their own way in that contest.

A converted try from No 8 Jamie Heaslip ultimately was just enough to propel the men in green towards a 22-15 win.

Although defeat to France last weekend brought their Grand Slam hopes to an end, a victory for the Scots will keep them in the hunt for the Six Nations title moving into the final round of the tournament.

Gregor Townsend’s charges are also guaranteed to pick up the Triple Crown if they get the better of Ireland.

This is widely regarded as one of the best Scotland teams in a number of years.

And O’Connell is well aware of the danger they are capable of posing.

He noted: “It’s a massive game. If we come out of there with a one-point win it will be brilliant for us.

“These are the games we want. It’s why we played the roof closed in the Millennium Stadium against Wales. You want it hard. The harder, the better.

“Murrayfield is a really tough place to go and more so now with the confidence that the Scottish players have.

“Their best players are playing really well. They’ve real belief in what they’re doing.

“It’s going to be incredibly tough for us, but it’s the challenge that you want.”

In advance of their visit to the Scottish capital, the Ireland coaching team have been bolstered by the return to fitness of Sexton, Robbie Henshaw, Jamison Gibson-Park and Tadhg Furlong.