Ollie Smith’s first style of taking part in for Scotland at a World Cup has left him craving extra after he was blown away by the environment contained in the “awesome” Stade Velodrome.
The Scots kicked off the event with an 18-3 defeat by South Africa in entrance of 63,586 folks within the Marseille enviornment per week previous Sunday.
Although the consequence didn’t go as deliberate, 23-year-old full-back Smith – the youngest member of the Scotland squad – was delighted to savour his first World Cup outing after changing Darcy Graham for the closing quarter-hour.
“Playing in the game in Marseille was pretty special,” he instructed the PA information company. “It was awesome, probably the coolest stadium I’ve ever played in.
“The atmosphere was mental as well. It was really loud and obviously there were thousands of fans across from Scotland to make it that extra bit special. It definitely whets the appetite for the other games in the tournament.”
The defeat to South Africa means Scotland haven’t any margin for error left if they’re to succeed in the quarter-finals.
Gregor Townsend’s aspect should win all three of their remaining pool matches in opposition to Tonga, Romania and Ireland.
Having been idle final weekend, they are going to return to motion in opposition to the Tongans in Nice this Sunday.
“We definitely still believe we can get out the group,” mentioned Smith. “We’ve spoken a lot about how we feel we can do something special at this World Cup.
“We believe we’ve got a good group of players, with good strength in depth, and we feel we can go far in this tournament.
“We know we need to bounce back from last weekend and Tonga is a good opportunity to do that.
“There’s still plenty rugby to be played against Tonga, Romania and Ireland so you never know what can happen.
“We’re still focused on getting out of the group and we’re going to have to win all three with good scorelines to do that.”
While the Scottish gamers had been visibly dejected after failing to do themselves justice in opposition to the Boks, Smith feels that having a fortnight between matches – a interval which included a number of days of downtime with members of the family early final week – has helped them banish any lingering negativity forward of dealing with Tonga.
The squad returned to the coaching pitch final Thursday and are targeted on getting the victories they want in opposition to Tonga and Romania to make sure their hopes of progressing stay alive going into what could possibly be a mouth-watering qualification shootout with Ireland in Paris subsequent month.
“The last week has been a nice period to reset,” mentioned the Glasgow again. “It’s now just about focusing on that next job, looking forward to Tonga.
“We’ve reviewed where we went wrong against South Africa and we’re trying to improve for Tonga and Romania. It’s about looking forwards rather than looking back.”
