Scotland name Weir at 10 for South Africa clash

Glasgow stand-off Finn Russell is unavailable because of his ankle injury, while No. 7 John Hardie has yet to be cleared to play after taking a head knock in the national team’s first game of the Rugby World Cup against Japan.

Scotland need to win one of the two remaining Pool games to qualify for the knockout stages, and Cotter might have felt his side’s winning chances are greater against Samoa. We had pretty much flown halfway around the world, and the boys had only got into South Africa four days before the game.

Scotland’s record of getting never defeated South Africa away from dwelling is of little anxiety, Laidlaw saying: “we’re close enough to Scotland, so that wont stress us. We are still in a corner and have to fight our way back into the middle of the ring”, he said, using boxing parlance.

Blair Cowan, Richie Vernon and Gordon Reid will make their first appearances of the competition in the Pool B match at St James’ Park, Newcastle, and could be joined by Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, who is among the substitutes.

There was a time, as Scott and Alex Dunbar established themselves and other centres came through only a few months after he had made the switch, when Vernon wondered if he had made a awful mistake, but it is testament to his success in the outside-centre channel in which he finds himself at the World Cup as a Pro12 victor in the very position that has so suddenly become Scotland’s richest. “He’s a quick learner, so he takes on information easily”. “All I was trying was to achieve the highest level I could but it didn’t happen there, but it’s all worked out well”. “We knew coming into the World Cup that it would be a 31-man effort and you need your squad”. However, another potential slip could happen when Heyneke Meyer’s side faces Scotland, which cruised past United States of America for a 39-16 victory. They are athletic and tall guys so it is definitely a challenge for me, but we have our plans in place.

Scotland have struggled to deal with the driving maul and they now take on a side who have got the technique down to a fine art.

Of the lineout battle and the quest to stop the Springbok maul, Scott concludes: “That’s the game right there”. “The forwards are going to have an extremely tough day”.

South Africa has won 11 of its last 12 meetings with Scotland.

In his absence, lock Lood de Jager will run the line-outs and although he’s done the job on occasions, he has to roll out a strategy which will be completely new because of the threat posed at the set-piece by South African-born Scots Josh Strauss and WP Nel.

“Their line-out is very effective and simple”.

As for the South African claim on Wednesday that they’d had to change their lineout scheme because Strauss and Nel knew their codes and could speak Afrikaanse, he laughed it off. It’s not something we’ve even talked about.

“Are they at it?” “I got to know a lot of the players there as well as the coaching staff who are still the current coaching staff”.