Scotland looking to 'right the wrongs' of defeat in World Cup opener

Scotland come up against Tonga in Nice in their second game of the Rugby World Cup.

Scotland are hoping to “right the wrongs” of their opening game defeat against South Africa when they meet Tonga in matchday two of the Rugby World Cup.

Gregor Townsend’s men are back in action this weekend after a fortnight off following the 18-3 defeat in Marseille.

And Blair Kinghorn says they will be looking to implement their attacking game on Pacific Islanders in Nice on Sunday.

The Scots know there is little room for error and will need to beat the Tongans to keep their hopes of progressing through the groups alive.

Kinghorn said: “I think everyone wants to get out there and right our wrongs, we didn’t perform as well as we could in the first game, but having two weeks off has given us a lot of time to recover from a pretty physical game and implement a lot of things that we reviewed in the game and know we can do better.

“It’s been a really good two weeks and the boys have connected really well.

“We know we never played as well as we could, they defended our attacks pretty well, they offered something pretty unique in their defence where they like to smother teams a lot and we weren’t able to put our best attack out there.

“So hopefully this week we will be able to put our best attacking game on to Tonga, something that we really pride ourselves in is our attack and we showed that in our warm up games and in the Six Nations and we are just looking to implement our game.”

Assistant coach Brad Mooar, who confirmed there are no injuries ahead of the match, said Scotland can’t let the idea of needing to chase big points returns affect their focus on just winning.

“If you start thinking about points, then you miss the moment that’s in front of you,” he said.

“For us, that’s something that will take care of itself at the end of the game.

“If we get our parts of the game right, on both sides of the ball, it’ll take care of itself.

“The pressure that we can create with our defence and offensive game, winning the ball back and playing off that, playing smart and with variation, that stuff takes care of itself.

“If we get too far ahead of ourselves, thinking about types of spreadsheets that need to be kept for tie-breakers at the end of the pool, then we miss the opportunity and threats in front of us.”

Following the game against Tonga, Scotland will come up against Romania on September 30, before ending the group with a game against Ireland on October 7.

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