Alex Dunbar’s first half try felt like a tribute to the sporting weekend’s biggest event as the Glasgow Warriors centre helped get Scotland off to a winning Six Nations start.

However his Superbowl style trick play touchdown also evoked memories of a clubmate’s major contribution to Scotland’s best ever campaign in the re-formed Championship.

The centre caught Ireland napping when he turned up in a first half lineout to score, just as former Scotland winger Sean Lamont joined the pack to score a try from a rolling maul during the win over France in 2006.

“I’ve been trying to get in the forwards all my days,” Dunbar joked afterwards, before adding: “No, it was a move we’d worked on a little bit.”

That Scotland had the courage to attempt something so audacious and pull it off was a mark of the mood in the camp and Dunbar hinted that they have more tricks up their sleeves for the weeks ahead.

“You know, we’ve got a lot of different options with the players we’ve got,” he observed.

“It’s down to Greig (Laidlaw), Jonny (Gray) and Finn (Russell) making the right calls. The rest of us just have to execute our roles within that.”

With Stuart Hogg claiming the team’s first two tries it was clear that the Glasgow players are feeding off the confidence of having made a long overdue European breakthrough.

However Dunbar said that what is happening with Scotland goes beyond that.

“I think the whole squad is full of confidence, with the Edinburgh boys into their quarter-final too,” he said.

“Everyone is confident going into it, everyone is playing well.

“So for us it was just about getting back into our roles with the Scotland team, focusing on that.”

‘We’ve managed to stay confident because, a lot of the things we do, we can see what we’re trying to work towards. We just haven’t quite executed in tournaments gone by.

‘In the first half there, we created a lot, which was good. We just need to tighten up in a few areas.”

In that vein he paid particular tribute to the role played by skipper Greig Laidlaw, one of just four men in the starting line-up who has never played at Glasgow.

The scrum-half has, however, accrued vast experience as a member of one of the great Borders rugby families who started his career with Edinburgh, has spent the last few seasons in England and is set to move to France this summer.

“He just talks to us about not getting too frantic. Keeping clear heads and clear communication,” said Dunbar.

“With him, it’s all about the next job, how we can put them under pressure.”

The Scots now face a very different type of pressure of expectation as they head to Paris next weekend aiming for a first win there this century.

They face a French team they beat last year and that lost its opening match at Twickenham on Saturday, but even as Saturday’s success was being savoured, Dunbar said attention had shifted to that Stade de France challenge.

“We’re happy to start the Championship with a win. We quickly switch on to France next week,” he said.

“We made a solid first start but we’ve still got things to work on.”