Scotland surged to the top of Rugby World Cup Pool B thanks to a dominant second half against the USA at Elland Road in Leeds this afternoon.
For the second match in a row, the Scots found another gear and scored 33 points after half time to blow away the States, who held a seven-point lead at the break.
Matt Scott was one of several replacements who made a difference in the second 40, and Sports Mole caught up with the Edinburgh man after the contest.
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Was there more a sense of relief or delight in the dressing room after that one?
"Definitely a mixture. At half time the dressing room was a bit nervy, guys were a bit anxious and everyone had something to say.
"It was just a case of the coach outlining simple things that we needed to do well and it shows our great character that we came out and executed a pretty simple gameplan in the second half."
Personally, how do you feel about your performance after coming on and scoring a try?
"Yeah I was pleased. I said to myself that this game didn't need anything fancy from me coming on. It didn't need me throwing miss passes or silly offloads, it just needs me to be direct and that's one of my strengths.
"I tried to do that when I came on, had a couple of good carries and managed to go over for a try, which was great."
You must feel that you've given yourself a good chance of starting against South Africa next week?
"Of course, yeah. We all want to play in the biggest games and playing South Africa in a World Cup is one of the biggest things you can do in rugby and I'd love to be in the starting XV.
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"I started last week (against Japan) and it was Peter Horne's turn to start this week. I said to myself I'm not going to chase it too much when I come on, just keep it simple and not do anything silly."
You weren't on the field in the first half, but what do you think was going wrong?
"We were just panicking a bit. Trying to play to the space too quickly, throwing miss passes. We talked about the American defence and how they can blitz through the line and we saw that a couple of times.
"It was just poor execution to be honest. I think sometimes mistakes breed more mistakes, it's almost contagious, so we just needed half time to settle down and say, 'look, keep it simple'. It shows good resilience that we managed to score five tries in the second half, that's a really good achievement."
Did you see South Africa's win over Samoa yesterday? They looked like a different team to the one that were stunned by Japan...
"Yeah I definitely saw a shift in their mindset and urgency yesterday. It's always the way - you have a bad one then come out the following week all guns blazing. I was impressed with the way they played. They looked much more like the South Africa we're used to seeing.
"They're going to be a completely different team to the one that turned up against Japan. We're under no illusions there and it will be an extremely tough game next week. I think it will be close, it's going to be exciting."
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It's an ageing South African unit whereas there's quite a lot of youth in the Scottish squad. That's twice now you've blitzed teams in the second half - do you think you could do it against the Springboks if they get tired?
"Well, South Africa are all world-class players even though some are quite old. I'm sure they'll be in good condition and I'm not sure that will come into it.
"I've certainly got confidence in our team's fitness. We're feeling good at the moment and as you've seen in the last 20 minutes in the two games so far, we've blown teams off the park with some tries.
"We'll just do our part next week and not worry too much about them."
There was plenty of Scotland fans here today, but the atmosphere's bound to be even better in a bigger stadium closer to the border next week in Newcastle. How much are you looking forward to that?
"Yeah I think it will be amazing. I've never actually been there before to watch football or anything so it will be fantastic and as you say, right close to the border.
"We had a big travelling support today who were brilliant and I've got loads of friends and family coming to watch our next two games (both at St James' Park) so I'm just dying to be involved."
Scotland are in action the next two Saturdays at St James' Park, first facing South Africa in six days before taking on Samoa on October 10.
Pascal Lemesre
