Scotland plan to take a physical approach against Fiji in the World Cup Pool B decider.
Scotland coach expected to make changes
Scotland plan to take a physical approach against Fiji in the World Cup Pool B decider on Wednesday.
Steve McCormack's men need to win by 28 points to progress to the semi-final qualifier against Ireland or Samoa, who meet in Parramatta on the same evening.
The Scots were beaten 36-18 by France in their opening game and McCormack knows his forwards in particular need to step up against Fiji, who produced the outstanding result of the tournament so far with their 42-6 rout of France last Saturday.
"I will definitely be making changes," said McCormack. "We left some quality players out last week and they are chomping at the bit.
"We didn't played as well as I would have liked against France. We probably only played at 40 percent of our capabilities and I know we can be a lot more physical.
"I thought we were a bit loose around the ruck and we've certainly worked on that.
"I thought we played some decent football against the French but we didn't establish field position."
McCormack has at least one change forced on him following the loss of loose forward Lee Paterson with a knee injury, while second rowers Duncan MacGillivray and Iain Morrison have been laid low with a virus.
"Lee Paterson has returned home but we are hoping everybody else will be available," added McCormack, who has delayed naming his starting line-up.
"Duncan didn't train and Iain has missed a couple of sessions but he trained yesterday (Sunday)."
Momentum
On the prospect of racking up a 28-point winning margin, McCormack said: "It's still in our own hands.
"We need to get the win first. We won't be chasing the scoreboard.
"But momentum is a funny thing. If you can get one try, you can often get two or three off the back of it.
"If we come up with a similar performance to Fiji's against France, you never know."
Fiji have the highest number of domestic players out of all the Pool B and C teams and McCormack is grateful for having had the opportunity to watch them in action.
"France went into that game blind but I think everybody knows quite a lot about them now and they've had a shorter turnaround than ourselves," he noted.
"They were very good against France. They look a formidable outfit and surprised everybody with the way they played. It was a very good win.
"We've done quite a bit of work on them but, to be honest, we're concentrating on ourselves."
