But the Edinburgh Gunners lock is convinced the Scots can hold their own in the power stakes in Paris.

Murray issued his rallying call as the injury-ravaged squad stepped up their preparations for the opener against the reigning champions.

After being whitewashed in the competition last year, Scotland go into battle as overwhelming underdogs.

But line-out specialist Murray believes low expectations by others can only be a benefit.

He said: We havent even talked about what people in the other countries think about us.

We have been concentrating purely on our level of performance and we know that if we get that right, the results will come.

I was part of the Scotland team which won over there six years ago and I know what we have to do.

We must take them on - go hard at them and be as passionate and proud as possible.

The French will always be massively physical and one of their greatest qualities is that they stay on their feet well in contact.

We have to get our defence sorted out - and by that I mean defending with the ball.

It will be one of the hardest games any of us will ever have played in our lives our lives and we have to find the right mix of going head-to-head with them and avoiding contact altogether.

Most importantly, we must avoid losing the ball like we did against South Africa in the final autumn Test at Murrayfield in November.

Now the 29-year-old has called for his team-mates to remain calm in a bid to weather the inevitable French storm.

Murray added: We know we have to keep calm in these circumstances.

France will also fly at us at 100 miles an hour and we will be taking some of the biggest hits we will ever have experienced.

Our job and our challenge is to fly at them even faster, and starve them of the ball if we can.

The bottom line is that we will need to put every ounce of effort we have inside ourselves to come even close to winning.