New captain Rory Best led by example as Ireland defeated Scotland 32-14 in the Six Nations at the Aviva Stadium.

Best was one of four Irish try scorers as Ireland got the perfect tonic ahead of next weekend’s trip to play England in London.

Eoin Reddan and Andrew Trimble also touched down in the first-half with substitute Fergus McFadden crossing the Scottish line late on.

“You get good days and bad days in sport,” said Best, after Ireland put the disappointments of the French draw and the Welsh defeat behind them.

“Against Wales it was bitterly disappointing but the bottom line is we were six points up with eight minutes to go, at home, and we weren’t able to close that out.

“In France, we were 17-6 up at half-time and didn’t score a point in the second-half. We produced a good performance tonight and that’s what we wanted, but we’re disappointed not to have won all of our games to date.

“In every campaign that’s what we set out to do. We’ll look at what went wrong. We set a lot of things straight but there are still a good few things that we can correct ahead of England.”

Coach Declan Kidney was happy with the result and the display.

He said: “I think it’s definitely a performance in the right direction. That’s what you’d always hope for as a coach, that as a tournament goes on you progress. We’ve done that.

“It wasn’t a full 80 minutes performance, but it was a lot closer to it. We did an awful lot more right than we did wrong.”