Ireland's Rugby League European Championship victory over France on Saturday surprised most in the sport, but not the man whose job it is to find a way of winning in Dublin this coming weekend.
Before the four-team competition began Scotland and Ireland were considered the outsiders against France and Wales, both of which have hosted Super League franchises.
However, Ireland's 22-12 win followed Scotland's 42-18 thrashing of Wales on Friday night, which means Saturday's match could now be a title decider which, more importantly, brings with it involvement in the prestigious Four Nations Tournament with Australia, England and New Zealand in 2016.
On the basis of performances at last year's World Cup it had been expected before the European Championship got under way that France, with the biggest talent pool to choose from, would be favourites and would meet the winner of the Scotland v Wales game in the decisive match.
However, Steve McCormack, Scotland's head coach, said yesterday that he had always been wary of the Irish.
"It wasn't a shock to me that Ireland beat France," he said. "Ireland in Ireland is always going to be a very tough match and looking at that Ireland squad they've got some very good players such as Bob Beswick and Luke Ambler."
Far from changing anything, then, the result two days ago merely reinforced what McCormack already knew ahead of this Saturday's trip to Dublin's Tallaght Stadium.
"We didn't need a warning, not least because every international game is tough and so you have to prepare accordingly," he said.
Having had time to reflect on Friday's victory McCormack reasserted his post-match view that there is still a lot of work to be done, in spite their emphatic eight-try win.
"We've done the review of the match and in the first half our [six-tackle] completion rate was poor - just 11 of 19 sets - and it was as if we were trying to score with every play," he said. "However, we played with a bit more composure in the second half and we ground Wales down. We've got to start like that."
In terms of the overall competition McCormack noted that while the ambition for Scotland, who have already qualified for the 2017 World Cup, was to gain the highest-level preparation for that event by getting into the Four Nations tournament, the Irish, like Wales, have added incentive should they claim the title.
"Ireland have a World Cup to qualify for, so that will make them all the more dangerous," he said.
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