Now we have to pray George Horne’s heroics are not in vain

But the former Bell Baxter pupil, and Howe of Fife scrum half, plus his Scotland team mates, may find their chances of progress in Japan washed out on Sunday morning.

Super typhoon Hagibis will hit the country over the weekend and has cast the Scots’ winner takes all encounter with the hosts in doubt.

Should the game be cancelled it won’t be rescheduled and Japan will progress at the expense of Scotland.

That was up in the air at the time of writing on Thursday morning, but what was confirmed after Wednesday’s 61-0 victory against Russia was that the Scots had at least given themselves a chance of reaching the quarters.

The massive margin of the win was helped by George Horne’s three tries.

He became the first in that position to score a hat-trick and only the seventh scrum-half to achieve such a feat in test rugby history.

He said: “It was pretty cool. Very special. I love scoring tries, I love winning games.

“To get a hat-trick was fantastic. There have been a lot of great scrum-halves over the years for Scotland and if that [record] is true it will be really special.