Ireland must win the physical battle in their Six Nations clash against Wales on Saturday at the Aviva Stadium, according to Donal Lenihan.
And the former Ireland captain believes that Andy Farrell's side have to prove most positive in their opening scrums in the game to curry favour with referee Romain Poite.
Lenihan was critical of Ireland's performance despite securing an opening victory against Scotland last weekend as the RTE pundit believes that it was the Scots who won the physical battle.
"Everything happens up front and in the last game Ireland conceded two scrum penalties, their line-out ball was poor, but most of all it was in the contact area, as Scotland won the physical battle and that is something that Ireland have to address," said Lenihan, speaking on Morning Ireland.
Inclement conditions are forecast for Dublin on Saturday afternoon and Lenihan believes that the wet and windy weather will play a major role in the outcome of the clash between two evenly matched sides.
"There is going to more spilled ball and I think the scrum becomes more important from that perspective.
"The scrum is going to be huge in this game and interestingly Romain Poite takes charge of this game and he has always been a referee who makes his mind up early as to who has the dominant scrum and tends to support that team throughout the match.
"So it is really important that Ireland paint a positive scrumaging picture in the first two or three scrums in the game."
CJ Stander was Ireland's standout performer in the Scotland game and Lenihan believes that the rest of Ireland's ball-carrying forwards need to step up against Wales.
"There was an over-reliance on Stander last week from a ball-carrying point of view, he was outstanding last week, and I think Wales will target Stander and put two men on him.
"The other carriers in the pack like James Ryan, Tadhg Furlong, Cian Healy and Iain Henderson have to step up to the mark and take the workload off Stander, because winning those collisions and getting over the gain line, the half-backs need that platform to put the team in the right area.
"So if Ireland don't step up in that area, I think they are going to be in trouble in what I believe is going to be a very tight game, there is nothing really between these two teams."
Looking at Ireland's opposition, Lenihan feels that Wales will bring confidence following their opening day win on Saturday, albeit against a poor Italian defence.
Yet Lenihan feels that Wales will look a more complete unit, most notably in the backline as they have made changes to their formation ahead of the trip to Dublin.
"When you score 42 points that is going to be a confidence boost but the Italian defence was so bad that you can’t read too much into it.
"There is a better balance to the Wales backline this week because George North moves from midfield to the wing and brought in Nick Tomkins, who I think is a really exciting player.
"[Josh] Adams is incredible, the top try scorer in the World Cup and has scored 13 in the last 16 games and you need to have your defence organised against him."
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