More bad news for Scotland

Scotland team manager Dougie Morgan has admitted Fiji will fancy their chances of ousting his ailing side from the World Cup next Saturday.

A calamitous campaign took another downturn today when it was revealed captain Bryan Redpath required three stitches in his toe after he stubbed it getting into bed last night.

Scotland have already moved out of their team hotel, lost Gavin Kerr and Andrew Mower to injury, Martin Leslie to a 12-match ban and suffered a record defeat to France

While defeat against the two-times finalists was not entirely unexpected, the manner of Scotland’s second-half capitulation and the margin of the loss has seriously undermined confidence in the team outside the camp.

And even Morgan accepted the combative South Sea Islanders will approach the weekend encounter with relish.

“I suppose they will look at our result against France and see that they did much the same as we did,” said the former international scrum-half.

“Perhaps, they will think they played better against France than we did.”

It is only five years ago that Scotland travelled to Fiji and suffered a 51-26 mauling with a side containing five members of the team which is likely to start Saturday’s encounter, including half-back duo Redpath and Gregor Townsend.

That kind of result will also make the Scots wary and Morgan knows the outcome may not necessarily lay in his own team’s hands.

“We probably thought we would win that game if we played to our strengths and we ended up getting hammered,” he said.

“If anything, Fiji are a better side now. Their fitness levels are higher and they are better organised.

“The bottom line for both teams is that this is a knock-out match. Whoever wins goes forward, the losers go home.”

Coach Ian McGeechan is facing one of the toughest tasks of his career trying to rally a side who only 12 months ago were celebrating a famous victory over South Africa and twice came close to turning the Springboks over on their own soil during the summer.

“If we knew why things had changed it would be easy to explain because we did play well against South Africa.

“But there is a different pressure in the World Cup, although I would like to think that we didn’t freeze on the big stage.”

Leslie seems unlikely to be involved at the weekend, although Scotland will find out tomorrow whether the Edinburgh flanker has won his battle to overturn his record suspension.

Leslie, who will not be present at tomorrow’s appeal hearing, has continued to train with the Scotland squad and was joined prop Allan Jacobsen, who only flew into the country this morning as replacement for neck injury victim Gavin Kerr.

Neither Redpath nor Townsend were there though, the captain recovering from his bizarre accident, while Townsend is suffering the effects of a minor cold.

Both should be available for Saturday’s encounter and it would be a huge surprise if their names were not in the side McGeechan is due to name tomorrow.

Bath winger Simon Danielli is pressing for a recall, while Nathan Hines might also expect a second-row slot.

The loss to France hit most players hard but Morgan revealed that a Sunday night barbecue with some Scottish supporters helped lighten the gloom.

“It was right the players were down after the game,” he said.

“I would have been disappointed if they hadn’t. But the barbecue came at the best possible time to change the atmosphere a bit.

“They are now in a much better frame of mind than they were after the game and looking forward to Saturday.”