THE Thistle Group may sound like a business consortium or a think tank, but in reality it has a more practical purpose. Its business is rugby. Its thinking is dominated by one topic: how to win games for Scotland.

In fact, it is the name given to the inner core of the World Cup squad of 31: senior players, leaders on the field and off, whose role is to work with the coaching staff on every aspect of preparation. There has often been a similar role for senior men within the national team, but the idea has been refined under Vern Cotter, who since the day he arrived has put considerable emphasis on a characteristically Scottish way of playing the game. Cotter’s purpose has been twofold: to ensure the team is playing a style of rugby which it knows and likes, and to strengthen the identity of the squad as a whole.

As Matt Taylor, the defence coach, explained yesterday, the name does not imply that all of its members need to have been born here - but it does mean that they have been entrusted with upholding the values which Cotter believes will give them the best chance of success on the field. “We’re very lucky that we have a playing group that really bought into the culture - working hard for one another, trying to stay humble, always trying to improve,” Taylor said.

“That has been a big emphasis since Vern has come on board. We have the Thistle Group, which holds the standards up of the Scottish way of playing and how we try to act and how we play. We have developed a lot on the field, but have tried to work hard at developing off the field as well.

“We have a group of senior players who catch up with Vern and discuss different things, and how we’re going to go about things. That’s part of the development of the group. The way we’re playing is probably a bit of a reflection of the development of both sides, the cultural side as well as the game — its management, structures and things like that.

“Everyone in the group, no matter where they were born or what their background is, feels Scottish and are really proud to represent the country. They know we’re representing the whole country.”

As defence coach, Taylor has been increasingly influential and successful, and was relatively pleased by the team’s performance in that area of the game during the four warm-up matches. But, while the basic system is in place and appears to be serving the team well, he is convinced that there is still a need to keep improving.

“In terms of body on the line and getting up and making dominant hits, I thought it was really good [in the warm-ups]. We still need to be accurate - we still got bounced off a few tackles - but defensively you want your guys putting their bodies on the line.

“Your culture has a lot to do with your defence and work rate and effort, and I think that really came out on the weekend. So if we defend like we did on the weekend, and keep improving, it should hold us in pretty good stead.”

Scotland’s defensive system is very similar, if not identical, to that used by Glasgow - unsurprisingly, given that Taylor is based there, and that Warriors players make up just over half of the World Cup squad. The structure of the system does not change from match to match, but Taylor explained that the areas of special attention do alter depending on the opponent.

“You don’t change it too much, but you probably have emphasis on certain things. For instance, France might attack you pretty close to the ruck, so you’ll have an emphasis that week on really being good at guard and shield, the two defenders close by. Teams like Japan, a lot of their line breaks might be out a bit wider, so we might try and have an emphasis on the defenders having an impact out wider.

“So there’s probably more tweaks. And you might look at the stats: say ‘Where are they turning the ball over? Is it close or is it wide?’ Or you might try and focus on attacking individual players.”

Taylor was not about to reveal how Scotland plan to tweak their defence against Japan, but he suggested that the challenge posed by their first opponents in Pool B is a lot more complex now than it might have been in the past, when brute force was enough at times to get the better of them.

“From what we can see of Japan, they’re a very good side. Maybe the stereotype of Japan, the Japanese people, is that they are quite small - they’re actually quite big when you look at them. They have a big back line and a big forward pack. They try to play a quick tempo type game, a very high-skill game, but actually there are a lot of big players in that group.”