It was a tense and enjoyable contest that was decided by man of the match Dan Parks’ nerveless final-minute penalty from near the touchline.

Ireland were shattered by the result and their failure to deliver a fairytale ending to their highly successful four-year tenancy at the cathedral of Gaelic sport.

Ferris, the Lions and Ulster flanker, believes the team may have learnt a valuable lesson in the importance of closeting themselves during the pre-match build up.

“There was a lot of hype coming into this game and you can’t help but lift the paper and read about it,” he said.

“It was a massive day for us and the whole of Ireland but perhaps sometimes you need to distance yourselves from that.

“For me personally there was so much hype about Scotland being the last game at Croke Park that you can try too hard and sometimes that isn’t the best thing to do.

“When you’re on the pitch it’s all guns blazing like every Test match, but before the game we were thinking about the occasion a bit more than we usually would.

“Maybe that impacted our game, maybe it did for mine slightly.

“That’s the way it was for me and it might be the same for a few of the other players. But that’s experience and it’s in the bank now.”

Ireland finished as Six Nations runners-up for the sixth time this decade, leaving them to reflect on a frustrating defence of their crown.

The title decider in Paris five weeks ago dealt a mortal blow to their Grand Slam ambitions and also had the effect of killing off a poor tournament after just two rounds.

France’s clear superiority transformed their march to succeed Ireland as champions into a procession, while even with their sights lowered at the Triple Crown Declan Kidney’s side still fell short.

“Obviously we can’t view this Six Nations as being successful because we haven’t won anything,” said Ferris.

“This is a team that can win trophies and should win trophies.

“Everybody’s building towards a big World Cup but we didn’t take our eye off the money and we wanted to win this Triple Crown.

“We’ve only lost two games out of the last 15 so we’re not a side that is used to losing.

“It’s a knock back when you are beaten by anybody, especially at home where we pride ourselves on our performances.

“But we’ll take a lot out of these two defeats in this Six Nations and the younger lads will learn from them.

“We believe we’re still on the right road, despite what’s happened.”

Ireland bristled with intent during a lightning-fast start but were hamstrung by a succession of handling errors that enabled Scotland to survive.

Too eager to treat Croke Park to a spectacular finale, they watched as the Scots weathered the storm and hit back to establish a 17-7 lead early in the second half.

A bulldozing try from number eight John Beattie and the kicking of the superb Parks, who finished with 18 points, did the damage on the scoreboard.

The victory would have been more decisive had Ireland not enjoyed lucky breaks on both tries, as Brian O’Driscoll’s opener clearly came from a forward pass by Jonathan Sexton while Tommy Bowe’s grounding of the ball was inconclusive.

“We made too many mistakes on the day. It was tit for tat the whole game,” said Ferris.

“By the third quarter we hit a purple patch and we thought we’d kick on but every time we got back into the game they kept hunting us down.

“When they have a kicker like Dan Parks who slots them over from everywhere, it’s very difficult.

“There was no lack of effort from us and it was a tight game that could have gone either way.”