Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt has acknowledged that this year's Six Nations title will be decided by "fine margins" as the battle to lift the famous crown enters its final weekend.

Defeat against Wales last time out has ensured that the championship is wide open with one round of fixtures left to play, although the current holders remain in strong contention to come out on top once more.

Having scored 16 tries on their way to topping the table last year, Ireland have crossed the white line on just four occasions so far this time around.

Schmidt is not worried about the "fickle" nature of the sport, though, claiming that his side are working hard on getting their performance spot on ahead of the trip to take on Scotland.

"The game is very fickle," the Daily Mail quotes him as saying. "One week you might score three tries and the next week you might not get any and you might have played better in the second week but you just didn't convert the opportunities.

"One of the frustrations from last week is that we did create three really clear try-scoring opportunities that we didn't convert. Last year, we converted a lot of our try-scoring opportunities. They are the very fine margins.

"Trying to make sure we get on the right side of those margins all the time is difficult and it is something we're working really hard on."

Ireland announced their team for the Murrayfield showdown yesterday afternoon, with two changes made to the side that was edged out by Wales last Saturday.