A COLLECTIVE confession of responsibility for what went wrong during the Six Nations was the key to Scotland’s improvement in the four World Cup warm-up games, according to Peter Horne.

The Glasgow back needed no reminding of his own shortcomings in the championship, having failed to find touch with a penalty against Italy when time was running out and his team were in the lead. He thought after that performance - one of five defeats Scotland suffered in their five matches - that he might not get another chance to prove he was worth a place in Vern Cotter’s squad of 31. But when the chance was offered he seized it, emerging as one of the most improved players from that series of matches.

“After the way the Six Nations went, everyone was devastated,” Horne said. “There was only one way to go and that was up, but we couldn’t sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. Vern made it clear that the only people to blame were ourselves and we had to get our fingers out.

“Last season I had some real lows, especially during the Six Nations. To come back from that and get another opportunity, it’s not something you can take for granted. So I’m just trying to go out and enjoy myself, just put into practice everything we’ve been doing over the summer.

“For me, it’s keeping my error count down, working hard to get on the end of things. I feel like it’s gone well, that I’m in a good place, so the next six weeks is going to be really exciting. I just can’t wait to get stuck into this World Cup.”

The two wins against Italy, the narrow loss to Ireland and above all the three-point defeat have convinced Horne and his team-mates that they are not far away from competing against the best teams in the competition. But he knows that if Scotland are to do themselves justice they will need to keep on improving, so that those narrow losses can be transformed into victories.

“As a collective group we have ambitions to go far in this World Cup. We won’t start blowing smoke, as we understand it’s a massive challenge. There are no egos - nobody believes we have cracked it just because we’ve run a couple of teams close.

“We need that killer instinct to win games and at this World Cup the games will be decided on little instances. The collective is stronger than any of the previous squads I’ve ever been involved with.

“We have this desperation to get out there and really do well, and you can see that in the way we’ve been defending. The amount of times we’ve been under the cosh but held out and came up with some big plays has been great. We have a bite about us which will stand us in good stead.

“We’ve had a couple of good results and run a couple of very good teams very close. So it’s been a positive summer. If we can just come out on the right side of these very tight score lines, we’ll really be a team in business.

“We’re starting to create so many more chances, and we’ve struggled to do that in the last couple of years. In the France game we had six or seven chances to score tries, albeit it was that last pass or a mistake at the end which meant we didn’t. At least we’re heading in the right direction, and if we can get that killer instinct then it would be great.”