David Denton has insisted Scotland will not switch off this weekend with opponents Samoa already eliminated from the quarter finals.
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Victory without a bonus point would keep the Springboks top of Pool B regardless of how Scotland fare in their last group match, but defeat for South Africa would open the door for Scotland and Japan to send them home with a humiliating early exit from a competition they have spoken of winning for months.
“We’ve got to stop playing politics”, he was reported as telling the Observer today. Yet there is no doubt we haven’t come close to peaking as a set of players and that can only spur us on.
“It’s always nice to get on the scoresheet but there’s more I could be doing and there’s more we as a team could be doing”, he said. After the first round it was pretty simple: we’ve got to win every single game to get into the quarter-final.
He said: “New Zealand has been mentioned but not in a serious way where someone says, “Look, this is what we need to avoid”.
No one really got to the bottom of that one but on the park the Scottish team showed in parts that they were capable of taking on the power of the mighty former World Champions.
If Scotland slip up against Samoa, Japan can take advantage when they meet the Americans on Sunday.
“They have unsafe individuals and we will be on guard to make sure we cover up”.
The Scots know it is likely to be win or bust on Saturday.
Having comfortably seen off Japan and the U.S., Vern Cotter’s side were put to the sword at the hands of the Boks last weekend.
That ability to pop up in the right place at the right time has been in evidence from the very beginning of Seymour’s career when he scored two tries against Japan on his Murrayfield debut to break the deadlock against a side just beginning to flex their muscles.
“It’s different to the Six Nations because it’s now knockout rugby”, he said. “If you look at what they have done in the World Cup they’ve defended quite well”.
“They have been to the Pro12 play-offs a few times recently”. The Glasgow boys can fall back on their experiences, so can the Edinburgh boys and myself.
Influential playmaker Russell has shaken off the ankle knock which kept him out of last weekend’s 34-16 loss to South Africa to be named at stand-off.
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Seymour believes it will do no harm if he presses all the emotional buttons he can to make sure he is totally fired up for Saturday’s must win Pool B match against Samoa. “We’ve done a lot of positive things, but I think there’s absolutely the sense and the feeling there’s much more to come from this team”, he said. It was just about waiting to see who would be ready and who wouldn’t.
