STUART Hogg underlined his credentials for a key role in this summer's British Lions' Tour of New Zealand with two tries in front of the watching Warren Gatland then said he and Scotland's other hopefuls had banished such talk to the back of their minds for the duration of the Six Nations. Hogg, who as a 20-year-old played second fiddle on full back duties to Leigh Halfpenny on the Lions tour of Australia, got on the end of scoring passes from Finn Russell and Huw Jones as Scotland got their Six Nations campaign off to a flying start yesterday. He wasn't the only man who will have impressed the Kiwi as the Scots vanquished a much-vaunted Ireland squad but Hogg said his focus was purely on Scotland, and a first opening-day Six Nations win since 2006 which was "up there" with the biggest wins of his career.

"Our focus is very much on Ireland this week then France next weekend," said Hogg. "If you start thinking about stuff like that [the Lions] the game becomes very individual.

"It [the win] is up there," he added. "We knew they were a massive physical challenge but we adapted well in the tough circumstances and came away with the win.

"It means everything. It is eleven years since we last won our first Six Nations game. We will analyse that game and get excited for France next Sunday."

Scotland have lost no shortage of agonisingly close matches in the Cotter era - not least of them being the World Cup quarter final against Australia - but Hogg insisted there is a new kind of belief amongst this group which never wavered, not even when Ireland edged back in front by a 22-21 scoreline. The match came hot on the heels of a last-minute win in the Autumn internationals against Argentina.

"We were under the pump but I had every confidence we were not going to lose that game," he said. "Not a single person in a Scotland jersey thought that was going to be lost. Then the little general [Greig Laidlaw] put the ball over at the end to put the icing on the cake."

The full back - whose two tries on the day moved him clear as Scotland's top Six Nations try scorer - was modest about his achievements afterwards, but this backline illustrated yesterday that they were capable of exploiting the spaces left by Ireland out wide. Hogg's second of the day, when he ran on to a flat ball from Jones and sold an outrageous dummy to another 2010 Lion in Rob Kearney, was a thing of beauty.

"I was in the right place at the right time," said Hogg, who is set to win his 50th cap for his country in Paris next Sunday. "As Finn said to me, his bounce pass is un-defendable! The second was a set piece play. The forwards were great in the line out and Shuggy [Jones] put me away and Kearney bought the dummy. It is our forwards and inside backs getting us into good positions and I was in the position to finish off.

"But credit to Ireland in that second half they have intelligent coaches and changed their game plan and rolled their sleeves up and got stuck in to us. Discipline wise we gave away a couple of silly penalties and they got good field positions."

Having run in three tries in 28 minutes - Alex Dunbar sneaked into an audacious line-out to touch down for the third - if they were being greedy Scotland might have had a bonus point too, not least when they were parked on the Ireland line late on. "I back our line-out but if things were to go wrong we could have been under the pump and we weren't in a position where the game was won," explained Hogg. "But as soon as the wee man knocked it over, the game WAS won."