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Scotland can afford to lose and still make the quarter-finals if the beat the Samoans.

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.

Eddie Jones, the Japan coach, has warned that rugby is moving in a “dangerous direction” and called on the sport’s governing body to increase “fatigue” in the game to reduce power and the number of collisions.

It broke a 24-year World Cup winning drought for Japan, the team coached by former Wallabies mentor Eddie Jones.

Hardie arrived in the country just five weeks ago, armed with a pair of boots, a short-term Scottish Rugby Union contract and documentary evidence of his grandmother’s links to Fife.