Ryan Wilson Ready For Crunch Clash With Samoa

Stand-off Ryan Wilson hopes his feel for the big occasion will pay off when Scotland head into their crucial Rugby World Cup Group B clash with Samoa in Newcastle on Saturday.

Victory for the Scots will secure them a place in the quarter-finals and such a mighty prize makes the showdown one of the biggest in most of his team-mates' careers.

And Wilson cited the example of Glasgow's Pro12 final win over Munster in Belfast in May as proof that he has what it takes to stand up and be counted in a match they cannot afford to lose.

Wilson said: We had a similar situation with Glasgow against Munster, but this is a step up - and the confidence and belief is there that we can go and win the game.

Getting out of the group stage is the focus and we know we can win the game. They are a big group of players, but we have to do what we wanted to do last week - go out after them.''

Samoa's 26-5 loss to Japan last week leaves them with nothing to play for but pride on Saturday, but Wilson knows his side cannot afford another sluggish start.

A fine second-half performance against South Africa on Saturday was undermined by a poor first-half display which cost them any chance of getting a foothold in the game.

Wilson added: Samoa is a game we must win but we came up short against South Africa, there is no question about that.

We have to go out and play in the first half and we didn't do that well enough. We gave away too many penalties and the boys were disappointed with the effort.

But you can see from all our games so far that we are getting better. Our fitness in particular is something we have worked on very hard and we hope that will pay off on Saturday.''