Greig Laidlaw marked it as the highlight of his career thus far to be named Scotland’s Rugby World Cup captain, but knows it could count for nothing.
He remains under pressure from Henry Pyrgos and San Hidalgo-Clyne for his place but is still relishing the challenge.
“I’m not just pleased to be captain because that never cements your place in this team,” he said. “Henry and Sam have been playing well and with Vern you can’t just turn up and go through the motions, you need to be performing.
“But that’s helped me, to have players going well behind you makes you realise that you need to raise your game.”
He also knows he can lean on the help of a wider leadership team that will include Josh Strauss, former captains like Ross Ford and up and coming leaders like Grant Gilchrist.
“We will need the whole group of players – the boys who start, the boys who come on,” he said. “We need leaders throughout the field in a tough environment like the World Cup.
“We have developed the leaders’ group within the squad which has also helped me and I think you could see that over the last few weeks.
“In the Ireland game I thought the boys played very well and we did very well to get the win in Turin without a great performance. I really felt we played well at the weekend, but we’re not the finished article by any stretch of the imagination, and it is up to the leadership group to make sure the players understand that.”
Laidlaw missed out narrowly on a place in 2011 and feels for his colleagues who haven’t made the cut.
“I was in the position of some of the guys this time round, you do all the training, but Vern can only pick 31 players he feels can do the best job for the country.
“Four years is a long time. I didn’t really think about it at the time, I got on with my business trying to play well for my club and then hope to get selected for my country.”
Laidlaw accepts it was a poor Six Nations for Scotland, but still believes the team were not far away.
“Take out the last game I think we were beaten by an average of four points in the other four games, so it was little things,” he pointed out.
“One error in 80 minutes can cost you. This time we have talked about having no dead moments, not concentrating on the field at any time regardless of what is happening. We have to be switched on.”
“There are a number of players who have stuck up their hands and played their way into the squad. “What’s pleasing is that we’ve finished the first three games very strongly so the fitness and training has been working, where in the Six Nations our first half performances were good and we fell away in the second half.
“If we can take that into the World Cup it’s clearly a good thing for us.”
Scotland squad
PROPS: Alasdair Dickinson (Edinburgh Rugby), Ryan Grant (Glasgow Warriors), Gordon Reid (Glasgow Warriors), Willem Nel (Edinburgh Rugby), Jon Welsh (Newcastle Falcons)
HOOKERS: Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors), Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby), Stuart McInally (Edinburgh Rugby).
SECOND-ROW: Grant Gilchrist (Edinburgh Rugby), Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors), Richie Gray (Castres), Tim Swinson (Glasgow Warriors)
BACK-ROW: David Denton (Edinburgh Rugby), John Hardie (Unattached), Josh Strauss (Glasgow Warriors), Alasdair Strokosch (Perpignan), Ryan Wilson (Glasgow Warriors)
SCRUM-HALF: Sam Hidalgo-Clyne (Edinburgh Rugby), Greig Laidlaw (Gloucester, capt), Henry Pyrgos (Glasgow Warriors)
STAND-OFF: Finn Russell (Glasgow Warriors), Duncan Weir (Glasgow Warriors)
CENTRE: Mark Bennett (Glasgow Warriors), Peter Horne (Glasgow Warriors), Matt Scott (Edinburgh Rugby), Richie Vernon (Glasgow Warriors)
WING: Sean Lamont (Glasgow Warriors), Sean Maitland (London Irish), Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors), Tim Visser (Harlequins)
FULL-BACK: Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors)