The Albany Gazette - Fearless Scots ready to confront formidable Irish challenge

The Scots need to beat Ireland, the world's top-ranked team, by eight points on Saturday -- and for the Irish not to get a try bonus point -- if they are to cause a major upset and reach the quarter-finals.

Defending champions South Africa have played all their first phase games and top the pool for the moment on 15 points. The Irish, who beat the Springboks a fortnight ago, are one point adrift.

Scotland are a further four points back having rebounded from an opening defeat by the Springboks with two bonus point wins against Tonga and Romania.

Gilchrist said the potential reward for beating the Irish at the Stade de France was attractive enough without worrying about the dreadful record against them.

"It's reality, it's what we have to face," he said.

"That is the record facing us. But history doesn’t scare this team.

"We want to do things we have struggled to do before.

"That's the kind of challenge it gives you, the really special moments in your career, and this is what this team is striving to do."

Gilchrist, 33, said the Scots had proved over the past few years they were capable of massive performances.

He was a member of the team in the 2021 Six Nations that ended a 20-year drought in beating France in Paris -- even though they were reduced to 14 men for the final 10 minutes when fly-half Finn Russell was sent off.

Duhan van der Merwe scored a try with the last move of the match, which was converted for a 27-23 win.

"The way we defended a man down, then came back to go through multi-phases at the end to score," said Gilchrist.

"That's the levels of effort it will require."

He pointed at Scotland's 29-23 win against England at Twickenham this year as proof that "this Scotland team has done things that other Scotland teams haven't done."

Unlike Gilchrist, centre Huw Jones has experienced beating the Irish -- he was a member of the team in 2017 that beat them 27-22 in Edinburgh.

The 29-year-old said he had been hammering home to his teammates what it took to beat them on that occasion, although it was a less formidable Ireland team than the one they play on Saturday.

"What sticks out from that is we took our chances in a close game when they were available and finished up on the right side of the scoreline," said Jones.

"That is clearly what we need to do and what we have done over the past few years when we have had good wins against top opposition.

"You just have to be clinical."

(E.Taylor--TAG)