Wales’ own public might vary between euphoria and despair given their team’s results, but the native man in the Scotland camp Jon Humphreys expects nothing but a bounceback at BT Murrayfield on Sunday.
As a former Wales international himself, the Scotland forwards coach knows only too well the bipolar nature of the Welsh rugby public, and he expects the veteran professionalism of the current Men in Red to hold sway after their home defeat to England last Friday.
“‘I presume the Welsh media will be going crazy, because down there the boys are always the best side in the world or the worst side in the world, I don’t think there is any happy medium,” he said.
“In Wales there is an interest and a fervour behind what goes on in rugby; there are two Premiership football teams in South Wales but rugby still dominates the back pages.
“People care about it. But it can be suffocating, you think it might be really good for (Wales captain) Sam Warburton to be recognised in the street, I don’t think it’ll be good for Sam this week. There are knock-on effects.
“There are good and bad sides to it. When you are riding the crest of a wave, fantastic. When you’re not, it’s not a good place to be.”
However, the present Welsh team sealed themselves off from this, and they’ve been here before.
“I don’t think they’re vulnerable, because they’ve been there before,” he said.
“Two years ago they came off the back of a poor autumn and lost the opening 6 Nations game against Ireland at home, then went on a roll.
“They’re very good at regaining momentum, very good at fighting and scrapping for a win. They’ve got a stackful of senior internationals and a coaching staff that’s been together for a long time.
“So we can’t think about what they’re going to do. We need to think about what we’re doing, playing the rugby we want to play. That takes care of what they’re trying to do.”
Despite the encouraging nature of Saturday’s performance in Paris, Scotland still have areas where they need to progress, not least the penalty count.
12 called against the Scots by Nigel Owens in the Stade de France one was reversed for a bit of French off-the-ball skulduggery continued the theme of the Scots being over-penalised.
“We are positive about where we’re going and we know where we need to get to,” continued Humphreys. “We have to temper enthusiasm and intent and make sure we get better field position than we did in the second half on Saturday.
“When we got that field position, we were positive and effective. But when you look at all these teams, Leigh Halfpenny stands out as a kicker who can make penalties from a 60-yard radius, he’s one of the very best there is.
“We need to be extremely focused about how we play because of him.”
Rather than seek revenge for last year’s 51-3 humiliation, the Scots don’t really intend to even mention it, he added.
“We’re always trying to represent ourselves in the right manner and we didn’t necessarily do that on that particular occasion,” he said.
‘That was extremely disappointing but, although it’s easy to say, we cannot look back and dwell on that. That’s not what represents us, that’s not what we are. This is what we are, here and now, this is where we’re going.
“Hopefully we see that on the weekend, not a team trying to gain revenge but a team trying to do themselves justice.”