After the drubbing against England a week ago, Alan Quinlan was pleased with Ireland's response against Wales on Saturday.
Speaking on Monday's OTB AM, the former Munster man said he was impressed with Ireland's physicality in Cardiff.
"The thing that pleased me as a former forward is that the line-out was good, the scrum was good and the confrontational style which we need was much better.
"I am sure that guys were playing for their place on the plane, but it was much better.
"There were two weakened sides and that's not being disrespectful to any players who were out there, but it was much better from Ireland," he said.
In terms of individual performances on the day, he was impressed with Connacht fly-half Jack Carty who made his first start for Ireland on Saturday.
Forwards performance
"Jack Carty played well, he got a lot of good front-foot ball and Marmion had better ball presentation at the breakdown as well.
"He did really well to be fair and he certainly put his hand up for selection. I think it's kind of unfair on Ross Byrne the week before given that the whole team collapsed in Twickenham.
"Your fly-half usually profits on the back of the forward's performance and he didn't do well from it. This week the forwards were much better, you saw the penalty try they got from a scrum," the former Munster man said.
While Ireland's game over the past few years has been based around retaining possession, they had less possession than Wales on Saturday.
Quinlan thinks it was encouraging that they were able to adapt their game.
"They all played a lot better but they probably didn't have a huge amount of possession to make lots and lots of carries but they were definitely more efficient with the ball.
"They were definitely more aggressive as well than the week before which was good to see," Quinlan said.
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