We really felt we deserved something from the game as the clock counted down and in the blink of an eye, we got it. I felt we had lost our chance when Shaggy was stopped the first time we went for the line and when the ball was recycled I was screaming for it. But fair play to Peter Stringer, he went to the blind side and Shaggy did the rest. It was a physically exerting game but we'd been expecting it and the Scottish game was good practice.

But that Scotland game was as physical an encounter as I've endured in quite a while. The following day, which is supposed to be a day away from rugby, I sat on the couch at home with an ice-bag on my shoulder, another one down my back and a third, just for good measure, on my dead leg. I had to constantly get new ice over the course of the day and by the end of my couch experience, I'd watched England and France on the television, a couple of soccer matches and applied ice to my sore spots for eight continuous hours. And people think this is a glamorous way of life.

Monday was another rest day, one we took to have an extra one over England who played the day before and, believe me, 24 hours without banging into someone else on the training pitch can make a hell of a difference. In fact all week we took things pretty easy, not because we were slacking but just because Eddie O'Sullivan knew that less training during the week would get more from us yesterday, especially considering we've been in camp for the past eight weeks. We did three hours work on the pitch and as a result everything was short and snappy.

The last two weeks aside, we've put a lot of work into changing our game on the training pitch and I feel things have gradually improved over the course of our five games. The backs have got a fair deal of criticism over the past couple of weeks but the one thing I'll say is that there's just been no space.

All defences seem to have improved this season and they've all been just so difficult to work around. I have no definitive idea as to why it has happened this particular season but the best theory I can come up with it that all six teams appear to have been under so much pressure going into the tournament. Scotland and Italy both had new coaches keen to make an impression, both Andy Robinson and Bernard Laporte are always under pressure because of the expectations of their respective countries, while there was a lot of doom and gloom in the media concerning Ireland before the start of the championship. It doesn't make for great entertainment and in that sense it's been a strange Six Nations in general. A lot of assumptions beforehand have been totally disproved.

For example, it was expected to be a two-horse race between England and France but it's hasn't been anyway as routine as most people would have expected. And Italy and Scotland were supposed to be the two fighting it out to avoid wooden spoon embarrassment but if any two teams can take something from the tournament it's those two.

Italy have improved an awful lot under Pierre Berbizier while Scotland appear to have gone back to basics and benefited from it.

As for my own tournament, I feel I've done quite well over the course of the season, even if there haven't been as many video highlights as there were two seasons ago. But that doesn't necessarily mean that things haven't gone well for me. I've found it difficult to get my hands on the ball in certain situations but the important thing is that you don't go chasing things in frustration because that's when things tend to go wrong. It's about being in the right place at the right time and these things either happen or they don't over a season. A few years back I probably would have worried that I wasn't making as many breaks but I've matured a lot over the past couple of years and learned how to be patient.

Just as we did in the final moment yesterday.