Scotland confidence at all-time high ahead of France visit

John Dalziel challenged Scotland to produce their best performance of the Six Nations against France on Saturday and keep themselves in contention for a first Guinness Six Nations title.

The Scots have responded to their opening-weekend defeat by Italy with back-to-back wins over England and Wales to climb to second in the table behind this weekend’s Grand Slam-chasing opponents.

A bonus-point victory over France at Murrayfield this weekend could lift the Scots above their visitors heading into their final match in Ireland.

“It’s everything, isn’t it?” said forwards coach Dalziel when asked on Tuesday about the incentive of potentially seizing the initiative in the battle for the championship.

“Sione (Tuipulotu) spoke well today to the group: when we came in here it was a seven-week block together, it’s now down to two and we’ve given ourselves an opportunity to be in this position where we are.

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“We’ve got to really relish every minute we are together for the next two weeks. It starts on Saturday. Our sights are only on that and we want to give our supporters the game of the tournament so far.

“The belief has honestly never been higher.”

The Scots have won five of their 13 meetings with France under Gregor Townsend and in the last encounter between the teams at Murrayfield two years ago, they were left aggrieved by a contentious decision not to award Sam Skinner a last-gasp try that would have secured victory.

“We chatted about that this morning,” said Dalziel. “We’ve got good history there, but we’ve been on the wrong side of it as well with narrow defeats.

“Test match rugby can be around a decision, which we had two years ago here. But it’s evidence that we can be there, we can be with France, as formidable as they are, at the tail end of a Test match.

“We can be there banging and we got on the wrong side of that decision. It was a tough decision, it could have been given differently but it is what it is.

“The belief is in how competitive we’ve been with them and we believe that when we’ve got our game right, we can challenge them.”

Dalziel revealed Wednesday’s training session will be pivotal with regard to whether Jack Dempsey can be considered for selection.

The Scots initially thought the influential No.8’s Championship was over after he sustained a bicep injury in the win over England but he has returned to the squad to prepare for Les Bleus.

“We’re just basically monitoring that day by day,” said Dalziel. “Having him back is a bonus and we’ll do everything we can to get him ready and available. Tomorrow will be a big day in terms of the contact element of that.

“We’ve certainly got more hope than we had at the start of last week. We thought that Jack was gone for the tournament, so for him to be able to turn around and find a way to be in this position has been good.”