Thistle be a Testing time

Confident Scotland ready to attack the Wallabies

SCOTLAND are riding an unprecedented wave of success and hope to drown the Wallabies with traditional set-piece strength and new-found attacking potency on Saturday.

For the first time in their history, Scotland are ranked in the top five in the world after a strong Six Nations campaign and now they’re after revenge after two highly controversial one-point losses to Australia.

The Scots swaggered along Coogee Beach in Sydney yesterday for a recovery session after their easy 34-13 weekend win over Italy in Singapore.

“Scottish rugby is in a really good place and it’s in a really positive place,” Scotland’s Aussie defence coach Matt Taylor said.

“Personally over the last couple of years I think we’ve built and built, and we’ve had some good results.

“In the Six Nations we had a really bad result against England (losing 61-21) which was disappointing.

“But you’d say in every other game, to beat Wales for the first time in 10 years, to beat Ireland who are a very good team, to beat Italy and keep them tryless in the last game, there’s lots of positives.

“I’m hoping in the next couple of years we can really press on and not only do well in the World Cup but also maybe press for Six Nations honours.

“If we get close to everyone on the ground and fit we’ve got the potential to do that.”

Before then, Scotland are eyeing comeuppance at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.

In the previous two Tests between the nations, Australian five-eighth Bernard Foley has kicked last-gasp penalty goals to claim one-point wins, including in the 2015 World Cup quarter-final in London.

Both calls were hotly disputed by the Scots, and they plan to repeat the result of their last game in Australia, the 9-6 victory in 2013 at Newcastle’s Hunter Stadium.

No more than six points have separated third-ranked Australia and fifth-ranked Scotland in their past five clashes.