Steve McCormack told Boots 'n' All why Scotland should not be dismissed as World Cup whipping boys.
We'll make Scotland proud, says coach
Scotland coach Steve McCormack told
Boots 'n' All why his team are determined not to become the whipping boys at next month's World Cup.
The Scots reached the tournament in Australia with a crucial win over Wales and are now looking forward to their opening fixture against France in Canbarra on October 26.
Many are predicting Scotland will finish bottom of Pool 2, which also includes France and Fiji, but McCormack insists his team have the determination - and the quality - to pull off a surprise.
"I think we'll shock a few," he explained.
"We want to be a team that is very difficult to beat and in previous years we've done that.
"We've got a tough set of uncompromising forwards, and in my opinion we've got the best half-back in the competition in Danny Brough and a lot of other players to build the side around Danny. We can certainly shock a few.
"We've a difficult pool in France and Fiji. France have really come on, you look at Catalans at the moment, they're on fire.
"We're probably going to be underdogs going into our group and going into the competition but that's no difference to us. We've always been that and we've always thrived on that competition and those challenges.
"It's a massive challenge for us and the coaching staff and players we've got will hopefully thrive on that challenge and come back with us being very, very proud of what we've achieved for Scotland."
Decision
The coach had a big decision to make over whether to head to Australia with the players that had helped Scotland to qualify or whether to introduce an influx of NRL players of Scottish ancestry.
However, McCormack explained why the decision was a fairly easy one.
"We had probably 10 to 20 NRL players that wanted to play for the team, however we've not done that.
"That's what a lot of people feared, the players that got us to this situation, they did feel some of them may get bulleted and we'd take a load of superstars in from the NRL.
"That's not the case. We've obviously got (Michael) Robertson from Manly Sea Eagles who's done very well so far and he'll certainly be an asset to our side but to be honest the team we've got is the one that got us here and we've added a little bit of quality to that."
