The New Zealand All Blacks know from bitter experience that a rating as the best team in the world is no guarantee of success at the World Cup.
After disappointments at the last four tournaments, they are determined to fine-tune their game so that they turn that ranking into reality and win the tournament for the first time since their triumph in the inaugural competition in 1987.
"The whole thing about this tournament is that you can be the best side in the world, but to win it you have to be the best team at the tournament," assistant coach Steve Hansen told reporters at the team's training base in Aix-en-Provence.
"So that is what we're trying to do. We're trying to get where we have to be and be in the right shape mentally and physically so we can play more than one type of game and play it well."
With three wins out of three, 224 points on the board and just 27 against, New Zealand have sailed into the quarter-finals as pool winners.
But former Wales head Hansen, who coaches the fearsome All Black pack, explained that instead of trying to pile on as many points as possible they have been following a carefully planned programme designed to strengthen specific aspects of their game.
The Scotland game was chosen as the stage on which to work on the scrum and line-out.
"One of the things we've wanted to do in the round robins is work on specific things in each game and this game was one where we wanted to target the quality of possession for the opposition and our own," said Hansen.
"Our big focus was to up our accuracy on our set-piece play. I don't think Scotland got more than two or three decent pieces of possession from the scrum or the line-out.
"So we are happy with that and our own ball was good."
Handling errors
With the All Blacks making an uncharacteristically high number of handling errors in the game, Hansen suggested that improving that aspect would form the focus for their final pool match against Romania on Saturday.
"Obviously, we're not as happy with some of the handling errors, but clearly when you try and play rugby and try and move the ball against a side that defends well, which Scotland did, there are going to be some errors.
"We'd rather be making some mistakes trying things than not making mistakes by not doing things. We are a team that tries to play rugby and we'd rather be like that.
"We just got to tidy it up a wee bit which I'm extremely confident we will do."
Hansen sees one of the key strengths of the present All Blacks squad as its strength in depth.
"We can field one side one week and another the next week and still have a high-quality performance.
"The key thing for us is getting through the round robin phase with everyone being available for the quarter-final and picking a team that suits the side we're going to play against."