It's a knockout: Johnny Sexton and Ireland gunning for victory over Scottish

The Irish camp are looking at the game as a 'last 16' tie.

FOCUS: Jonathan Sexton faces the press in Paris on Thursday.

Ireland are treating tomorrow night’s World Cup pool clash with Scotland as a round of 16 knockout tie, Johnny Sexton has revealed.

Both captain Sexton and head coach Andy Farrell insisted that though Ireland need just two match points against their Six Nations rivals at Stade de France to reach the next weekend’s quarter-finals, the primary objective is a victory.

Farrell yesterday made minimal changes from their last outing, an 13-8 victory over defending champions South Africa on September 23, to his matchday squad for tomorrow’s Pool B finale, promoting hooker Dan Sheehan and lock Iain Henderson to the forward pack with Ronan Kelleher and James Ryan moving out of the starting line-up and onto the replacements bench, where a fit-again Jack Conan has been selected for the first time at the tournament following a foot injury sustained on August 5. Stuart McCloskey is poised for a World Cup debut having been named at number 23 in place of injured fellow centre Robbie Henshaw, whose hamstring strain could yet rule him out of the tournament, Farrell said.

Ireland’s strength of selection does not suggest they are taking this fixture lightly, a sentiment confirmed by the captain yesterday.

"It is a knockout game, we've viewed it as a last 16, we've spoken about it and that's why it's important we got our preparation right and now we need to get our performance right.

“It was always going to come down to this game. It was possible that Scotland could be the unbeaten team and us needing to chase it to win but ultimately it comes down to a must win.

“It’s exactly where we want to be. We’ve been lucky enough with injuries to date so from that regard we’re in a good place. I think with our form we still feel that there’s more in us.

“Parts of the South Africa game, we look back and if we were on the other side of the result we’d be taking huge lessons from it in terms of some of our parts of the game didn’t click. So we still feel there are some parts of our game we need to improve if we want to go further in this competition and that comes down to this weekend.”