SCOTLAND captain Greig Laidlaw admits his side cannot afford to make another sloppy start when they take on Samoa in their final group game at St James’ Park on Saturday.

The Scots will be guaranteed a quarter-final place if they beat a Samoa side who have lost all three of their World Cup matches so far, but Laidlaw accepts there can be no room for complacency in the wake of a 34-16 defeat to South Africa.

Scotland conceded the first 13 points at St James’, with the Springboks claiming a converted try and two penalties, and were effectively out of the game before they got going.

They also trailed 7-6 to Japan before eventually going on to record a comfortable 45-10 victory, and while Samoa will only be playing for pride in five days time, the Scots are determined not to give their opponents even the sniff of an upset.

“We’re playing good teams, so it takes time to break them down,” said Laidlaw. “But we’re probably starting slightly slow and we’ll need to fix that for Samoa because they’ll come flying out of the blocks.

“We were losing the collisions (against South Africa) and the breakdown was a mess – too many errors crept into our game.”

Prior to the tournament, it was always anticipated that Scotland’s fate would be decided in their final group game, and while Japan’s two victories have added a level of intrigue, there is still every chance that Pool B will end with South Africa on top and the Scots in second spot.

Even if Japan claim a bonus-point victory in their final game against the United States, any Scottish win over Samoa will still see them through, and head coach Vern Cotter has already turned his focus towards this weekend’s showdown.

“Samoa is now a crunch game,” said Cotter. “We’ve got seven days to iron out some of the things we didn’t control as well as we would have liked.

“I think the score was a fair reflection of the game. We were dominated in the contact area, and we struggled to move forward. We don’t seem to have the confidence to start well, and that will be something that will definitely be talked about.”

South Africa have successfully turned their campaign around since suffering an opening-game defeat to Japan, but their boss, Heyneke Meyer, is hoping they will remain under the radar when potential tournament winners are being discussed.

Their weekend performance suggests they should be considered as a genuine threat to their southern hemisphere rivals from New Zealand and Australia, with Schalk Burger, JP Pietersen and Bryan Habana all claiming tries in a dominant display.  

“We’re at our best if we’re written off, so we have to keep the pressure on ourselves,” said Meyer. “I don’t know why, but it’s part of our mentality. If the whole world writes us off, that’s when we come back.

“We’re going to have that ruthlessness and desperation going into Wednesday (against the United States) as well. We don’t talk about favourites – we just take it game by game.”