IT is all looking depressingly familiar for Scotland.
In another fabled World Cup campaign, back in 1974, a Scottish side was unfortunate enough to have been eliminated without losing.
Steve McCormack's men are faced with a comparable fate this week, but whatever happens, he knows it has been a successful tournament.
The aforesaid similiarities even extend right down to both sides being captained by a feisty little blighter based in Yorkshire. Danny Brough of Huddersfield Giants is just as respected among his peers as the late Billy Bremner was by his when leading both Leeds United and Scotland, and he could be poised for a similarly painful tournament exit.
It is close to 40 years since Bremner's side became the first team to be eliminated from a World Cup finals tournament without having lost a match in their pool, having been edged out on goal difference.
If Italy beat Tonga tomorrow, Brough and his colleagues will suffer the same fate and it will seem particularly harsh since the USA are already through after winning the significantly weaker 'minnow' pool. All three cross-pool matches have been won by Pool C teams over their Pool D opponents.
For all that he would love to be negotiating extra time off from full-time employers Warrington Wolves tomorrow to prepare for a quarter-final against the world champions New Zealand, head coach McCormack knows his men have already been among the great success stories of this tournament.
"It's not about that," he said, when asked about missed opportunities to boost their points difference on Thursday evening. "We've come up with two wins and a draw in a World Cup. There's no way I can look at any sort of negatives with this game and the other two we've played. We've scored a lot of points tonight, not conceded many and we've done all we can."
Having drawn with each other, Scotland and Italy have an identical points differential. Any win for the Italians puts them through, then, but McCormack knows his team has won itself real credibility within the sport.
"The future's very good and to not lose a game in a World Cup from our point of view is a fantastic achievement," he said. "We're still in the World Cup. It's not as if everybody's going home now. We've given ourselves a chance and we'll just hope that Tonga can put a performance in."
For all that the Tongans were knocked out by Scotland's defeat of the USA, it remains a realistic hope since the South Sea Islanders were favourites to win Pool C and will not want to finish bottom. They have, too, at times looked like the team that merited their billing before the competition began.
"The Tongans have got something to play for," McCormack said. "I know they spent a lot of time in their home country before the World Cup and when they came over they spoke about how proud they were to represent their country.
"There's no doubt that on Sunday they'll come out firing because there's no way they'll want to go away from the World Cup without getting two wins. They are very proud people."
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