I had a big table which I had to disassemble. It should be quite easy. Disassembling flat-pack furniture shouldn't be a problem. There were a few screws that had lost their thread and a couple of bolts replaced in awkward areas. It presented obstinate and determined opposition for me and my set of screwdrivers, but I still had the step by step guide. There was no unthinking complexity to it. More sleight of hand or dexterity to undo the piece of furniture, there was no further expanding paradigms. I did it in a reasonable amount of time and assembled it again in the other room.

When it was all done, I put my hand in my pocket and still had two or three nuts and bolts. I couldn't figure out where I'd left them out.

Scotland are the equivalent of flat-pack furniture. All Ireland needed yesterday was a step-by-step guide and to apply themselves and they should have taken this Ikean rugby side to pieces. Disassembly. I could not believe how poor the Scottish side was. I had imagined after they had beaten England and France that there would be a little bit more to them, maybe moving into the realms of dismantling and moving a computer. My entire IT section is a mess of wires and cables. I thought Scotland might at least be that hard difficult to figure out.

The scoreline never really lies, 15 points to nine, no tries and a six point margin, but I just can't reconcile that with the evidence I saw in front of me. And as the game wore on, anxiety and panic took hold of me as I feared a horrific breakaway try to leave the Scots with a 16-15 victory.

Ireland just could not finish them off and put them away.

The team tried to play with confidence but it was fairly evident that there was anxiety imbued throughout the 15. Anxiety is the first time you can't do it a second time.

Panic is the second time you can't do it the first time. Ireland had quality ball deep inside the Scottish 22 and enough time in possession to score three or four tries.

There are two reasons why they didn't get over the whitewash. The first one was down to a very poor performance by the referee Mr Dickinson.

The average referee thinks he isn't. Mr Dickinson will probably look at this performance and think that he did a reasonable job, that he wasn't too harsh on either side.

But if you look at the pattern of this game, you understand why Ireland couldn't score.

The whole of the first half was littered with penalties conceded by the Scottish, the principle infringement being in front of the front foot, offside to you and me.

Scotland to my count conceded eight and Ireland managed to get nine points in the first half as a result but not after the Scots had denied them at least two clear-cut chances. So I thought that in the 36th minute when Mr Dickinson called Jason White aside and told him if there were any further infringements that somebody would be sin-binned. From that moment I thought the game was over. Scotland could only deny Ireland through illegal means and they would soon start losing two or three men to the sin-bin. So I sat back, relaxed a little bit and waited for the show to begin. In the eighth minute of the second half O'Kelly upset the Scottish put-in. Blair had no option but just to kick it back into touch. Ireland won the ball easily and got their maul going, inching forward. After about five or six metres, Jason White came round onto Ireland's side of the maul, made no attempt to get back out and obstructed Ireland's maul from an offside position. Stringer, as he normally does, did his apoplectic butterfly impression and somebody tried to drag White out of the back of Ireland's maul. Ireland's maul collapsed and Ireland ran the ball thinking there might have been a penalty. Trimble was tackled into touch just at the corner flag and the game stopped. Mr Dickinson didn't bother with the yellow card.

Nor two minutes later did he bother to penalise White for a king hit on Flannery at least two yards offside. Encouraged by the fact that they could get away with impunity, the Scots played offside all day. The other aspect to Ireland's inability to score I suppose was Scotland. You'd take one determined soul with a rusty monkey wrench over a dosser in a fully kitted workshop. This was not the Scotland of a year or two years ago. They had real conviction in the tackle and they managed to frustrate Ireland in this area. They had a dreadful line-out. They couldn't maul, they couldn't carry and only a couple of opportune kicks by their average full back Hugo Southwell gave them breathing space before Ireland mounted another attack.

Ireland did perform, did engineer a good start and upped their intensity but played the conditions wrong.

They will need an IT specialist for next week. England have far better technology.