THIS is the day. Three months and more since Scotland first assembled in their training camp, their opening match in the 2015 Rugby World Cup is here at last.

First games in big competitions are always eagerly awaited, but this one is extra special, thanks to Japan’s remarkable win over the Springboks on Saturday. Before that match, this afternoon’s fixture was widely seen as the easiest of the four Scotland face in Pool B. The picture is a lot different now.

The courage of the Japanese squad has never been in doubt. Their problem hitherto has always been sustaining a physical challenge for the full 80 minutes of a match. They showed against South Africa that it is a problem no more, as they claimed the winning score more than three minutes into stoppage time.

The problem now, of course, is how to back it up. Japan have only had four days to recover both physically and mentally from the demands of that match, and although their coach, Eddie Jones, claimed yesterday that they are fitter than Scotland, that has to be in doubt.

Having said that, Scotland must be ready to compete from first to last. Even during their better performances over the past year or so, Vern Cotter’s team have been unable to play at a consistently high level throughout the game. This afternoon at Kingsholm in Gloucester, they need their powers of concentration to be greater than ever before.

Still, while they have fallen well short of perfection, Scotland at least showed in their four warm-up matches that they are moving in the right direction. That was not too hard to do after a Six Nations Championship in which they lost all five matches, but there is no denying that they have made substantial progress.

No matter how frustrating that string of defeats was for Cotter, the narrow margin by which Scotland lost their first four games enabled the coach to tell his squad that they were not far away from turning the corner. They repaid his faith first by coming close to beating Ireland in Dublin in the first of their four World Cup warm-ups, then beat Italy home and away before losing by just three points in Paris.

“We got a huge amount out of our pre-season,” Cotter said. “Just in terms of strength and conditioning we’re in a much better place.

“The Six Nations was easy to evaluate. It was only in the final game that we effectively came unstuck.

“It was all about taking a much more positive approach. I read articles which claimed the team was broken: the team was never broken. You get down in the mouth when you lose, and we lost five in a row. We felt we could have done so much better.

“Some of the content was good. It was really good. The gods of rugby don’t like teams that don’t try, so we’re going to get out there and try. We’re going to give it our best shot.”

Although Scotland will be wary of Japan’s virtuosity in attack, they know they have to do more than just react to what their opponents do. They have had a game plan in place for this contest for some time, and, having at no time taken the Japanese lightly, they have seen no need to alter that plan in the light of the South Africa game.

“It’s all about what we do,” Ross Ford, the hooker, said. “We’ve been targeting this game for a long time - it’s been what pre-season has been about.

“We obviously watched the Japan v South Africa game. We knew as a squad we couldn’t underestimate them and that proved to be the case. They played really well on Saturday, but we were always aware of how good they are.

“It’s about what we do as a team. I don’t think Saturday’s match changes that much, if anything, for us. We’re still going into the Japan game in confident mood.

“Pre-season has been really good for us and we’ve improved massively from the Six Nations – we’ve even made developments from the first warm-up game. We’re going into the game knowing what needs to be done and what areas we need to exploit.

“Japan’s win hasn’t changed any of that. We’re still confident in our own ability.”

Confident, but not complacent. Scotland know that the contest could be very even in most if not all aspects of the game, above all in the scrum and lineout, where Japan have improved so much over the past year or two.

In games between a team that has played already and one that is making its first start, it is common for the former side to be livelier in the first 15 or 20 minutes, and for the latter to be tentative, perhaps even nervous. We can therefore expect Japan to try to blitz Scotland from kick-off. If they do so successfully and get a couple of scores on the board it will test Scotland’s self-belief.

Patience could therefore be the key to success. But provided Cotter’s team are patient, play to their strengths and take their opportunities, they should win out in the end by around ten points.