Tommy O’Donnell was pleased with both Ireland’s finish to the Six Nations and his inclusion in Saturday's XV after being dropped for the defeat to England.
Ireland finished the tournament with a satisfying victory over a resurgent Scotland and the Munster flanker was very much focusing on the positives despite the frustrations of a slow start to the campaign.
O’Donnell said: “It’s good to come home and to give a display that the fans want. Obviously we had work-ons from the earlier games.
"We’d opportunities and chances to finish and I think we were a just a little bit more clinical in the last couple of games and it was a great way to end it.
"You never want to be dropped, but being dropped gives you that little bit more of a hunger"
“I think if you look at the first two games, how close we were to winning those... I think we’d the most line breaks out of the teams – we just need to get on our team-mates’ shoulders and finish off those opportunities.
“If one or two of those chances had gone our way I think we would be looking at the top of the table at this stage.”
For O’Donnell, the focus now switches to the summer tour to South Africa. “The Six Nations is a very competitive competition – it’s a great time to be playing at this time of the year, playing on the hard ground as well in a stadium like this.
“It’s a good opportunity now to be heading to South Africa and good to have confidence built up but it’s definitely going to be a tough task.”
And O’Donnell is satisfied on a personal level after reclaiming his place in the back row, one he says is “hotly contested".
He concluded: “The back row in Irish rugby, and provincial rugby, has always been hotly contested and I think there’ll always be tough decisions.
“It will always be a position where coaches will argue and spend a lot of time picking. But obviously for me it’s just great to get back in and show what I can do.
“You never want to be dropped, but being dropped gives you that little bit more of a hunger. I trained hard and focused on the basics and it paid off.”
