The whistles of the French crowd rather than the sound of the pipes are the soundtrack that Scotland want to hear at the Stade de France tonight as they launch their RBS 6 Nations campaign against France in Paris.
Those sounds of disaffection from the perfectionist Parisians coming from the stands will be just as much inspiration as the skirls the Scottish have been hearing about from Pipe Major Scott Methven, a combat veteran who was regailing the team of the heroism of Scots in the frontline in the world wars recently.
Directly in the firing line tonight is Scotland’s young fly-half Finn Russell, but although he’s excited about facing 80,000 in the French national stadium, buoyed up on their usual emotion without even the additional influence of events in Paris last month, the 22-year-old’s not daunted.
“I’m pretty chilled out about everything, I don’t get nervous much,” he said. “It might be daunting a bit to see that 80,000 crowd doing what they normally do, but I’m just looking to enjoy it.”
It would have been great to start his Six Nations career at home, but Paris will be “amazing.”
“A few guys who’ve been through it before have talked about the crowd and what they can be like,” he continued. “I’ve played a couple of games for Glasgow this season and got a wee taste of it.
“I heard you really want to get them whistling, that’s when you know you’re on top. The more we can get them whistling, the better for us.”
Will he try his now famous dancing footsteps out in the French capital?
“I’ve no strict instructions not to,” he laughed. “I guess I have to do it at the appropriate time. It won’t be halfway through the game, that’s for sure.”
Russell’s experience in one of those two games in France earlier this season, at Toulouse playing for Glasgow when he was yellow carded for a dangerous tackle, has been taken to heart.
“The more pressure we can apply to them, the better it is for us,” he said. “But you have to be careful not to overdo it.
“It happened against Toulouse when I was yellow carded and the ten minutes I was off they scored 13 points. One slip-up like that can cost you a game, so you have to be focused on playing the ref as well as you can, not giving away penalties.”
The Scots have to be disciplined in other ways as well.
“There’s been a big emphasis in not giving loose kicks to their back three because if they get a sniff they can score from anywhere,” he said. “There’s a bit of pressure on me and Greig (Laidlaw) to be accurate with kicking and not giving them anything loose to work with.
“It’s not a tighter gameplan, we just don’t want to be making mistakes in our own 22 and putting ourselves under pressure so if that means kicking one phase earlier even if it’s on, then we’ll do that.
We won’t vary from a running game, an open game, it’s just going to be a smarter game.”
History has been a big part of the preparation for this game, but selective history plenty about Scottish psyche and battles of the past, even away from the rugby field, and less on the fact that the Scots have just one win over France since the 6 Nations increased from Five.
“This is a new team, new coach and lot of guys who haven’t played the 6 Nations before, we haven’t thought too much about what’s happened before, it’s all about tomorrow night,” added Russell.
“But as a team we’re looking back at the roots of Scotland itself, the country’s history and how we’ve always been underdogs, turning over bigger countries who’ve come playing or fighting in our own way.
“We had the Pipe Major talking about the how the team can come together like Scottish soldiers do on the front line, about the past and the future we can make.”
Time was when the Scots could sit back and frustrate France knowing that Gallic indiscipline both in structure and in giving away penalties could come to aid them, but the attention is on Scottish discipline tonight.
The Scots are the most penalised team in the championship over the last couple of seasons, and the 13-6 count against France at BT Murrayfield last year had a significant influence on a game Scotland should probably have won.
“France are now a very good defensive team,” agreed assistant coach Duncan Hodge. “They don’t give away many penalties. Structurally, they are different to some teams in defence, but they are strong there.
“Discipline is a massive part, the winning and losing of penalties, field postion, kicks at goal. We let ourselves down a bit in the autumn, in the first half against Tonga we gave away far too many penalties.
“It’s something we’ve tried to address, because if we continue in the current vein we will struggle.
We can’t give away the number of penalties we have been and expect to beat the big teams away from home.”
The Scots chose to do their final team run in a private location rather than the Stade de France with only kickers visiting the stadium yesterday perhaps just as well as a bomb scare on the RER line near the stadium caused major morning disruption in that area.
It’s indicative of the tension in the city, and wholly understandable given the recent Charlie Hebdo atrocity. There is certainly far more armed personnel around the boulevards than usual, as Paris undergoes something of a freeze with temperatures barely rising above zero.
Added security will be in place tonight at the Stade de France with fans asked to be at the stadium no later than an hour before the kickoff time of 6.30 pm local, 5.30 pm in the UK.