Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend has said his side need to win their remaining games in their Pool to be in with any chance of qualifying for a quarter-final place.
Ireland beat the Scots 27-3 in Yokohama earlier this morning and led at half-time 19-3 thanks to three first-half tries coming from three forwards.
Speaking after the game, Gregor Townsend said, "it is disappointing. We didn’t start with the energy, accuracy, and aggression that is required to beat a team like Ireland. They took their chances well when they got into our 22."
"If you give any team in world rugby a 15 to 20 point start, it is going to be very difficult to come back.
"They just converted mistakes into territory, and mistakes into points. They have a template we all know about and if you give them chances in your third of the field, you can’t afford to do that.”
Scotland got to a quarter-final in the last edition of the tournament four years ago and narrowly missed out on a spot in the last-four after a one-point loss to Australia at Twickenham. Their best performance at a World Cup was in 1991 when they got to a semi-final under the leadership of Ian McGeechan. Five of their six games in 1991 were played at Murrayfield and included a 24-15 win over Ireland.
"We need to win our next three matches, regardless of the result today," said Townsend. We have to bounce back and play a lot better against Samoa, Russia, and Japan, who started the tournament well."
"When you don’t play your best in your first game of a World Cup, then you will obviously be disappointed. We didn’t show the best version of ourselves tonight.
"We must play much better in our next three games if we are going to get out of our pool and progress into the quarter-finals and I believe we will be."
Next up for Scotland is against Samoa on Monday, September 30th at the Misaki Park Stadium in Kobe.
