Scotland vs Australia RWC 2015: Scots turn to Sir Alex Ferguson to help beat the odds

Former United manager’s speech used to inspire depleted squad against Australia

Even Sir Alex Ferguson has his limitations. He has talked Manchester United into many a frenzy and stoked the fires of Europe at Gleneagles last year, but in neither example were his teams facing the degree of difficulty stretched out before Scotland at Twickenham tomorrow.

In the last of the quarter-finals, Scotland face the World Cup’s most expansive team and tournament second favourites. Though Australia are without their back-row totem David Pocock and bulldozing full-back Israel Folau, you are still required to stake £10 on the Wallabies to return one on the betting exchanges for this match, the kind of odds that tend to take the bow and arrow out of Agincourt speeches.

Nevertheless, the Scotland coach, Vern Cotter, sat his team down before a recording of the Govan knight at full throttle. “We watched one of [Ferguson’s] speeches from a conference in Glasgow, giving advice on how to play in a final,” Cotter said. “The major part that stuck was to play the game, not the occasion, and that will be a big focus against Australia. That’s so important as we can’t get too carried away just because it’s the World Cup quarter-finals.”

Cotter obviously does not see the paradox of rolling out Ferguson as part of his prep. In doing so he has already identified this encounter as special, adding to the very sense of occasion he seeks to demystify. His overwhelming underdogs are further diminished by the suspensions handed down to Jonny Gray and Ross Ford. Their appeals against the three-week sanctions will be heard today, which most experts would regard as an expensive exercise in futility since a positive outcome would still not render them available tomorrow, and we all know how that ends, don’t we?

The idea that a sense of injustice at the draconian bans might work as a motivational tool firing the Scots to an improbable victory is the kind of abstraction that does not even survive the warm-up. Once that whistle goes, Scotland will have only their talent on which to rely. That, as ever, is the ultimate arbiter, and none know this better than the players, as Richie Gray demonstrated after Scotland’s penultimate training session yesterday.

“We have to come together and put in a performance. We don’t want to let ourselves down,” Gray said. “It will be difficult. I have been impressed by what I’ve seen [of Australia], they have played some really good, attacking rugby and held out against Wales with 13 men. But we have a game plan. We need to front up physically. If we do that we have a chance.

“We have an expectation of what is going to come at us. But we are not going to worry too much about that because we have to worry about what we are going to do. If we don’t get those things right we are in for a long day. We’ve had three training sessions, one more tomorrow to fine-tune things then we’ll be fine.”

The matter of his brother, Jonny, was quickly laid to rest. “When I heard the news it was very upsetting, on a personal front I really feel for my brother, I feel for both guys. You feel anger, upset, disappointment. But the reality is you need to get over it and get on with things because there is a quarter-final to play.”

Cotter has identified the breakdown as the critical area where Australia will have to be discomfited if Scotland are to gain a foothold in the contest. None has been more ruthlessly efficient at getting to the contact area quicker, defending their own ball and pressurising the opponent. Pocock’s absence is an obvious boon, but we are only talking matters of degree, here. His replacement at No 8, Ben McCalman, will not be shy in coming forward. That said, he will be met, according to Gray, by some good, old Scottish enthusiasm.

“It’s a pressure situation, a huge occasion. Of course, you play rugby for the fun of it and to have a crack against the best teams in the world, making tackles, hitting rucks, that sort of thing. We’ll take pleasure in that,” he said. “We played well in attack against Samoa but were not up to scratch defensively. That’s something we will have to improve.”

Scotland make four changes to the team that edged home by three points against Samoa. Tim Swinson (second row) and hooker Fraser Brown replace Gray and Ford, Blair Cowan comes in for Ryan Wilson in the back row and Peter Horne replaces the injured Matt Scott at centre.

Greig Laidlaw, the Scotland captain and the tournament’s leading points scorer, struck a positive note while maintaining a sense of perspective. “We need to focus on the game on Sunday,” he said. “We’ll pick the boys up later on. It is unfortunate for the boys and we all feel sorry for them. We’re just focused on the group and the quarter-final. My job is pretty easy to get the boys up for this week. Australia had the performance of the tournament against England, but we have a game plan that we think will keep us in the game. We’re not going there just to make up the numbers.”