Scotland enter the eighth Rugby World Cup looking to make amends for the failings in New Zealand four years ago.
Defeat to England in the final pool stage match in Auckland ensured they achieved the dubious honour of being the first Scottish side to fail to make it to the knock-out rounds for the first time in the tournament's history.
Since Scotland's memorable run to the 1991 semi final, when an uncharacteristic penalty miss from Gavin Hastings allowed England to snatch victory at Murrayfield, the quarter finals became familiar and expected finishing points for Scotland at the global tournament.
The 2011 campaign will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Narrow victories over Romania and Georgia were followed by a deflating loss to Argentina in Wellington and then that narrow defeat to the Auld Enemy which meant Andy Robinson's side checked out early for the first time.
The same fate simply cannot be allowed to happen to Vern Cotter's side over the coming weeks.
The class of 2015 will face a difficult route to the last eight, beginning with a clash against the ever-improving Japan in Gloucester next Wednesday, before taking on the USA in Leeds four days later.
The Scots will then head north to Newcastle for back-to-back Saturday clashes with South Africa, on October 3, and Samoa on October 10.
It is in this final clash with the hard-hitting South Sea Islanders that is expected to be the make or break game for Cotter's men.
Whilst the USA and Japan will provide a stern test for Scotland, the match with Samoa is almost certain to determine who will join pool favourites South Africa in the last eight.
If Scotland do manage to get two wins on the board from their opening two matches, they will surely have to use most of their 31 man squad across both those fixtures which fall within five days of each other.
Most specialists recommend a period of rest of up to ten days between Test matches, so Cotter and his management team will no doubt look to rotate the squad, particularly in the pack, before the Newcastle clashes.
Those Tests at St James' Park will be the toughest games of Cotter's reign so far in terms of physicality and attrition.
The New Zealander made it clear with his back row selection that he expects his pack not to be pushed off the ball and dominated in the contact area as they were in the Six Nations.
Selections Dave Denton, Ryan Wilson, Tim Swinson and Alasdair Strockosh are all abrasive ball carriers.
In the backs, stand-offs Finn Russell and Duncan Weir can probably both expect to get game time under their belt from the opening two fixtures, while squad captain Greig Laidlaw is likely to start at scrum-half against Japan at his club ground Kingsholm, allowing Henry Pyrgos a run in the nine jersey at Elland Road against the Americans.
Squad selection and rotation is key to a good World Cup campaign and this was demonstrated in the warm-up fixtures where Cotter managed to rotate his entire extended squad to the extent that almost all his players played in one of the two victories over Italy at the end of August.
The very nature of tournament rugby means that somewhere along the line reinforcements will no doubt be called upon, and so ousted back-rowers John Barclay and Rob Harley, both enjoying impressive starts to their domestic campaigns, could be called in to action, among others.
SRU chief Mark Dodson perhaps unwisely made public his seemingly realistic target for Scotland to lift the Webb Ellis trophy this year, but that outlandish expectation was aired before Scotland's Six Nations whitewash in the spring.
Privately at least, those within the Murrayfield corridors of power must be re-addressing that particular target given what has happened in the months since Dodson announced his targets.
A quarter final place is rightfully Cotter's absolute minimum target this time around, anything more is well beyond expectation and anything less unthinkable, such is the meticulous time and effort invested in the national team.
No expense has been spared in terms of facilities and preparation. There will be no excuses for failure.
Dodson has also recently awarded Cotter a contract extension despite the Wooden Spoon in the spring, and so it is clear that he believes the right man is in the job. It's now just a matter of things clicking on the field which will ultimately prove if the decision was justified.
Rewind the clock back to November last year and expectation was high among Scotland supporters given the positive Autumn Test campaign which included two impressive wins over Argentina and Tonga either side of a narrow defeat to the World Champions New Zealand - a match that showed this was a Scottish side finally ready to go toe-to-toe with the Tier One nations.
By the end of March though, that feeling of optimism had all but gone and the feeling of "we've been here before" came back with a vengeance.
All the good work and progress from the autumn seemed to have eroded.
Two wins over Italy, combined with two very narrow losses in Paris and Dublin, suggest that Cotter has used his extended time with his squad wisely.
Whilst other nations such as Wales have focused on player physique during their well-documented training camps, Scotland have trained with the ball in stark contrast to previous years.
Factor in the winning mentality from the 18 Glasgow Warriors players in the final squad, and you now have a team that is certainly capable of making Scotland roar again on the world's biggest stage.
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