THIS NEXT WEEK is not going to be a tough one for Gregor Townsend on the motivational front.
He won’t need to remind his Scotland players how everyone has been talking Ireland up, looking forward to a potential quarter-final between Andy Farrell’s side and the All Blacks, and overlooking the threat of the Scots.
You suspect that Farrell and co. haven’t enjoyed seeing the speculation and predictions about their possible route to the World Cup final. Any time they’ve had a chance, the Irish squad have been at pains to stress that they’re only thinking about Scotland.
There’s no doubt that the Scots will be looking to deliver the game of their lives next Saturday at Stade de France. Ireland are 12-point favourites in some quarters, but Townsend’s men are backing themselves.
“On our day we can beat anyone in the world,” said centre Cameron Redpath after last night’s 84-0 hammering of Romania.
“It’s about doing our stuff right and if we do that we really believe that we can turn over Ireland. We’re really excited.”
Hooker Ewan Ashman expressed a similar sentiment, underlining that the Scots believe in their ability to pull off a stirring success in Paris.
“We know if we put our processes in order then we will get that win and we’ll do what we need to do to get through to the quarter-finals,” said Ashman.
Experienced back row Hamish Watson pointed out that while Ireland are a superb team, they will be the ones bearing the weight of expectation.
“It is going to be so tough,” said Watson.
“They are looking very good, number one team in the world and quite rightly so as they’ve been playing well for two years or even longer now.
“But a lot of the pressure will be on them. They’ll be expected to win, which is how we like it sometimes as well. We’ll prep well this week.
“But we’ll have to play incredibly well and it will have to be one of our best performances. It will be a hell of a day if we can get it done.
“We owe them one. The last time we beat Ireland was 2017 in the Six Nations, not many boys would have been involved in that one. It’s been a long time since we beat Ireland and we are playing them at their best. They have won 15 in a row or so [16], and they looked great against South Africa. That’s the way we like it, when we go in as underdogs and a bit written off.”
Scotland will be looking for a fast start to pile pressure on Ireland. Townsend’s men would love to lead, challenging the Irish players to once again show their resilience even with the prospect of a pool-stage exit looming.
But last night, Townsend wasn’t willing to go into Ireland’s World Cup history when asked about it.
“I am not going to answer that question,” said the Scotland boss.
“Ireland are the number one team in the world, they are on the back of 16 wins [in a row] so I’m sure they aren’t thinking about what has happened in previous tournaments.
“They have got a lot of confidence in how they have played over the last two or three years and they’ll take a lot of confidence from the last game they managed to get a win there [again South Africa].”
The Scots recognise that they will need to go to another level next weekend. They were disappointed with the 18-3 defeat to South Africa in their opening game and recognise how hard Ireland will make their lives.
Scrum-half George Horne said they will need to sharpen up from last night’s big win over Romania if they’re to succeed.
“We need to stay composed in attack,” said Horne. “We probably forced a few offloads tonight. We know we are not going to make as many line breaks against Ireland so we’ve got to be clinical with every chance we get.
“The positives definitely outweigh the negatives tonight. No points conceded, that’s a huge bonus. We know we will have to play our best if we want to get anything from the Ireland game but tonight was a good start.”
