Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw believes today’s meeting with Ireland could set the tone for the whole of his team’s competitive year, but he knows they cannot afford to get ahead of themselves if they are to have any chance of beating the defending Six Nations champions this afternoon.

Victory would almost certainly kill off Ireland’s chances of retaining their title following their opening day defeat, whereas a second home win, following the bonus point triumph over Italy last week, would represent Scotland’s best ever Six Nations start and put them in title contention.

However, the Celtic neighbours also know their World Cup prospects could be decided when they meet one another in what will almost certainly be a pool decider in Japan later this year and there is an awareness that today’s match will offer a psychological advantage to the winning side.

“We won’t be thinking about it tomorrow but obviously it all helps, if you can get a win going into a massive comp like a World Cup it’s important, but it’s about the Six Nations at the minute,” said Laidlaw following his side’s eve of match training session yesterday.

“We want to be successful in this tournament, so we’re simply concentrating on the next game and that’s Ireland.”

Scotland caught the Irish by surprise in the opening match of the championship on their last visit to Edinburgh two years ago, both teams going on to win three of their five matches in the competition behind Grand Slam winners England that year, but with the competition still alive for all the competing sides, the scrum-half accepted that his side needs to win pressurised, competitive matches like this one if they are to be seen as serious contenders for major silverware.

“If we want to go on and take the next step, it’s games like this we need to win against quality opposition,” he acknowledged.

“Ireland are certainly that, they’ve proved that over the last couple of years in the competition and are one of the best teams in the world.

“We have a lot of respect for them and if we want to win tomorrow we’ll need to play one of our best games.”

For all that England delivered a sound beating to the champions on their home turf last weekend, Laidlaw said Scotland must stick to their own methods, rather than attempt to repeat what happened last in Dublin.

“Ireland will be looking to right a few wrongs, they would have felt, in their performance, so it’s going to be a physical battle tomorrow,” he said

“They will be hurting from England winning the physical battle, so that will be tough for us.

“We’re certainly not going to go out and try to play like England. We’re going to play like Scotland.

“We’ve got to back ourselves in what we do and everybody’s got to buy into it.”