Gregor Townsend admitted Scotland can have to “do it the hard way” if they’re to attain the World Cup quarter-finals however the head coach is hoping the renewed readability of their scenario in Pool B can assist his crew of their quest to progress.
After Ireland’s slender victory over South Africa on Saturday and the Scots’ bonus-point 45-17 win over Tonga on Sunday, the image has grow to be barely clearer for everybody in a lop-sided part containing three of the highest 5 groups on this planet rankings.
From Scotland’s perspective, they now know they’ll have to get a bonus-point win over Romania in Lille on Saturday after which guarantee they defeat Ireland in Paris the next weekend with a bonus level or win by greater than seven factors to deny the Irish a dropping bonus.
Townsend is happy that his crew emerged from the previous weekend with 5 factors and nonetheless with a preventing probability of qualifying.
“It keeps us on track,” he mentioned. “The South Africa-Ireland sport may have gone both approach, it was an in depth Test match.
“But the very fact South Africa picked up a bonus level means now it’s a straight shoot-out between us and Ireland.
“If South Africa decide 5 factors up in opposition to Tonga – which they could do, they may not – that might imply they’ll doubtless get to 15 factors.
“So we’re competing with Ireland to get to 14 factors, until both of us decide up bonus factors in our sport in opposition to them.
“Ireland are already on 14 factors, so we’ve to get to 10 factors (by beating Romania on Saturday) to make sure that it turns into a straight shoot-out between us and them, and if we have been to win that sport by greater than seven factors we get by means of to the quarter-final. It’s as easy as that.
“We comprehend it’s going to be a troublesome problem in opposition to the primary crew on this planet. We’re going to have to do it the exhausting approach to get out of this group however we consider in our gamers.”
Finn Russell admitted Ireland’s win over the Boks has made issues barely harder for Scotland as a result of they’ll have to beat the Irish by greater than seven factors – as opposed to merely beating them by any rating – however the stand-off doesn’t really feel it has modified issues considerably for his facet.
“Ideally for us South Africa would have won but we know what we need to do now,” he mentioned. “We knew what we had to do in opposition to Tonga, and going into the Romania sport we all know what we’d like to get to have that ultimate sport in opposition to Ireland in Paris.
“I don’t assume it’s modified an excessive amount of for us as a result of after (dropping to) South Africa, we have been all the time going to have to go and beat Ireland. We knew at the beginning this was doubtlessly a scenario we could possibly be in.”
The Scots scored seven tries in opposition to Tonga – all from totally different gamers – however Russell feels they’ll have to be way more scientific going ahead, significantly in opposition to the Irish.
“Seven different try-scorers is great but I think we left five or six chances out there potentially,” he mentioned.
“It’s nice we’re getting balls out vast, the backs scored a couple of tries, we acquired a driving maul attempt which is de facto pleasing as properly however there have been instances once we acquired to 5 metres from the road and we’ve acquired to do rather a lot higher there.
“It’s good the boys are scoring however I feel we’d like to be rather a lot higher and rather a lot tougher on ourselves in coaching and in video games.
“It doesn’t matter if there’s one man that scores seven tries or seven people, it’s a crew effort. But we’d like to up it. If we wish to progress on this match we’d like to be rather a lot higher than that.”
