France coach Bernard Laporte believes his side have what it takes to triumph over Ireland in their last Six Nations fixture and record an historic Grand Slam.

New Zealand-born centre Tony Marsh crossed for two tries and elusive scrum-half Fabien Galthie scorched clear for another as the French set up the opportunity to clinch their first Grand Slam since 1998 with a 22-10 victory over Scotland.

Bryan Redpath, who managed to shine despite playing directly opposite man-of-the-match Galthie, deservedly grabbed a consolation try for the home side.

Ireland, whose own Grand Slam hopes were ended by Scotland last year, will provide tough opposition for France as they seek to succeed where England have failed in three successive seasons.

Laporte said: "I've never been so close to a Grand Slam and we haven't beaten Ireland for three years so it will not be easy.

"We are now 80 minutes away and we will look forward to the game.

"The Autumn season (where France beat Australia and South Africa) gives us confidence to go out and win it.

"My players will go in feeling they are not playing for the Grand Slam but instead playing against Ireland.

"We don't want to look back in years ahead with bad memories of losing this chance. That would be sad."

Laporte is also keen to clinch the Grand Slam for another reason - the future of French rugby.

He said: "Our job is to promote rugby in France and winning it would do that.

"I remember after the last World Cup the victorious Australians said 'we have conquered the world - now we must do it in our own territory'. That is what I would like to do."

The former Stade Francais coach revealed he had targeted Scotland's two Lions forwards - Tom Smith and Gordon Bulloch - in their front row in order to gain control of the match.

Laporte said: "We knew their number one (Smith) and number two (Bulloch) were important to the way Scotland wanted to play so we tried to target them and slow them down.

"The attitude of my players was excellent as they carried out their tasks perfectly because this could have been a tough game.

"You only have to look at the New Zealand game last year to show how difficult the Scots are to play against. They only scored their tries late on to beat the Scots."

Despite France's fourth successive victory in this season's tournament Laporte still sees room for improvement.

He said: "I can always find mistakes in our game. Even against England they were things I wanted us to do better.

"One thing we could improve on is our ability to adapt to changes in the game. For 20 minutes we were under pressure and we could have handled that better.

"Our line was too flat and we were not taking the ball up with the speed we should have. That is an area we could work on."