If any evidence was needed that the belief and expectation amongst the Scottish athletes has been bolstered by the prospect of performing in a home Commonwealth Games, then look no further than Chris Grassick, captain of the Scottish men's hockey team.
The 23-year-old will lead his team out at the Glasgow National Hockey Centre later this month at the Games and he believes that they can defy all expectations.
The Scottish men are seeded to finish in seventh place, which would equal the best ever placing of a Scottish men's hockey team at a Commonwealth Games, but Grassick is confident that his team can reach a far loftier position.
"We believe we can make the top four if we play to our potential. I think we could be a real underdog in the tournament," he said. "We have a group of players who are really excited about it and there is no real pressure on us to do well. I think there will be a lot of surprises in the tournament and I think we will be one of the teams to cause a surprise."
Ask any Scottish athlete preparing to compete and they all concur that the home crowd will have an immeasurably positive effect on the Scottish athletes; Grassick is no different.
"The home support can definitely make a difference," he said. "Playing hockey in Scotland, you don't tend to get massive crowds very often, but we played a four nations tournament in April at Glasgow Green and there were six or seven hundred people there and we were all thinking: 'wow, if that's what it's like with 700 people, what will be it be like during the Games?"
The Scottish team is youthful - no player is over the age of 26 - but by no means do they lack experience. A number of the players have competed in Commonwealth and Olympic Games and the majority of the players have now left Scotland and play their hockey down south or overseas, including Grassick himself who plays for Surbiton in the England Hockey Premier League.
Grassick left his home town of Edinburgh four years ago and relocated to London in the hope that he could break into the GB team. His plan worked - the Scot won a place in the GB squad after the London Olympics and he gained his first GB cap earlier this year.
"The move helped me because I was playing in a bigger league and was more visible to the GB coaches," he explained. "When I joined Surbiton, there were six members of the GB squad and they were getting watched all the time.
"I felt it was a big step up for me and my general basic skills and ability to make decisions under pressure improved."
The Scotland team only train together as a squad three days a week due to club and work commitments which, Grassick concedes, puts them at a disadvantage. "It is difficult when you are competing against teams who are full-time athletes," he admits. "South Africa are full-time, as are the Indians. And we have the world champions, Australia, in our last group game."
He maintains that his team can produce an upset, though. "We've been training together as a team for three months now and it's also made a big difference to us that so many of our players are playing in big leagues," he said. "Only four of our players are still playing in Scotland. Ten years ago, there would have been only three playing outside Scotland."
Grassick and his team-mates will travel to London this weekend for their final competitive match before Glasgow, with the Scot knowing that he and his teammates must come out the blocks fast in a couple of weeks time for their opening matches against South Africa and India, both of whom are ranked higher than Scotland.
"The first two games are pretty big for us. If we can get at least one result, that will set us up really nicely," he said. "There is no pressure on us to get far, but we're going to have a great backing and I think we will be ones to watch."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article