John Dalziel believes Scotland have shown against Ireland and South Africa this year that they are “on the right path” towards justifying the hype and being able to topple the game’s heavyweights.
The Scots have been lauded for the way they play and have proved capable of big results against the likes of England, France, Wales and Australia.
For all the plaudits they have received and the promise they have shown in recent years, however, they have no major silverware to show for it and have been unable to pull off a victory over any of the current top three in the World Rugby rankings – South Africa, Ireland or New Zealand – since Gregor Townsend took charge seven-and-a-half years ago.
The Scots were well beaten in both of their pool-stage matches against the Springboks and the Irish at the World Cup in France last year.
But forwards coach Dalziel is adamant they have shown progress since then, most notably in their 17-13 defeat in Dublin in the Six Nations and their spirited display at home to the world champions on Sunday when they got within four points of Rassie Erasmus’s side in the closing quarter before going down 32-15.
“I think we’re on the right path,” said Dalziel. “If you look at even the growth from the World Cup, I think we were arguably out of the game in periods. We were second fiddle the whole game. I think we’ve taken a lot of learnings from that period, from our learnings from the Six Nations.
“We’ve also grown the group as well. The summer tour, although people frowned upon what was happening with a lot of younger people, we’ve seen the growth in that, with guys like Gregor Brown, Max Williamson, Will Hurd, Ewan Johnson, all these guys are now in their second involvement and they’re here on merit in a proper Autumn campaign.
“We’ve grown the group, we’re evolving the whole time.
“We’re getting closer, we feel we are getting closer. Our defence improves campaign after campaign, so does our attack and our layers, our physicality.
“I think our forwards in terms of maul defence, we’ve gone up against the biggest challenges, England, South Africa, France, and we’ve come through.
“So we have all the components, we just need to find a way of, once we’ve worked for 60 minutes to keep ourselves in there, getting over that last hurdle.
“If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. But I definitely feel the Ireland and South Africa game, in the last few Tests we’ve fronted up and we’ve shown we can be competitive away from home or at home against the top teams.”
Scotland are set to “freshen up” their team for their third Autumn Test against Portugal at Murrayfield on Saturday.
“We want to finish on a high with three wins (out of four from the Autumn Series),” said Dalziel.
“We’ve got to pay ultimate respect to Portugal. They’re coming here for a free swing at a top-tier nation away from home, so the pressure’s on us to deliver. We will make changes, but we’ll make sure we’ve got a strong enough team to rival the challenge ahead.”