THE Welsh nation should be proud of its rugby team, says coach Mike Ruddock after an unprecedented month of glory on the road.

First came Rome, then Paris and yesterday Edinburgh - three great Welsh triumphs, the first and last by record margins giving Wales success unparalleled in recent years.

Never before have Wales won three away games in the championship, partly because Italy were latecomers to make the old Five Nations into Six, and certainly Wales have never won three games of this magnitude, all away and all in a row during the same season.

It clearly makes Rudddock proud, and he believes the Welsh nation should feel the same, not that they need much encouragement.

"All the support team have worked to give these players the best possible chance to play like that," enthused Ruddock after Sunday's marvellous 46-22 triumph at Murrrayfield.

"The players are a great credit to the nation, they're playing with confidence and belief, and we are there to help them.

"We started today the way we finished in Paris in the second half, we were exhilarating at times, we played with great tempo and space and with continuity to have a go at Scotland. "I don't know what their coach said to them at half-time, but I'm glad he didn't say it at the start of the game.

"The intention by us was to build on the first half, but you've got to give Scotland credit for making the substitutions and coming at us and playing some great rugby.

"We lost our way a bit and gave away too many penalties, allowing Scotland to get their hands on the ball and come at us.

"But how many of our guys had won in Paris? And only Gareth Llewellyn of this group of players had won at Murrayfield so it's a great achievement - and we didn't play for the full 80 minutes.

"When we did play it was great quality and this was a big win for us.

"We put our plan together back in June, and there had been a big emphasis on the debrief. We will now do our homework on Ireland and do our planning for that."

Ruddock warns Wales about the Ireland Grand Slam test to come on Saturday, and insists it won't be easy.

"All the external stuff (Grand Slam talk) will be on the outside. The strength of this team is that they have bought into the game plan for each game," he said.

"Ireland will always be dangerous opponents, they've got great quality and they are Triple Crown holders.

"They are more dangerous now that they have lost to France, they're still going for the Triple Crown and they'll be difficult to beat.

"But we'll sit down and look at how we can attack them."

Ruddock has a few injury worries from the Scotland game in addition to those he already has missing, like Gareth Thomas, Sonny Parker, Colin Charvis and Dafydd Jones, not that anyone would notice their absence.

"We've got a few bumps and bruises. Mefin Davies has got a dead leg, Kevin Morgan had a couple of knocks and Rhys Williams a calf strain.

"There's some tired bodies out there, but we need the team to work hard this week. "Kevin has come back from injuries and is playing so well and Ryan Jones is a rookie at international level, but his big burst helped in that first try."

Jones could hardly have wished for a better way to celebrate his 24th birthday yesterday than that first try. Now it's on for that Grand Slam finale.