Lam positive on limp Scots

By DAVID LEGGAT at the World Cup

BRISBANE - No one is giving Scotland a prayer of toppling defending champions Australia in Saturday night's World Cup quarter-final.

Their form has been woeful, there have been murmurings of unhappiness in the camp and they have lost a couple of key players to injury.

Even against an out-of-sorts Australia, the picture is pretty bleak.

But Pat Lam, Scotland's assistant coach, manages to find a bright side to their plight.

Maybe it's because of his years as a talismanic leader of Samoa, who have to climb mountains at each cup. Or maybe he's just being diplomatic.

Either way, Lam put a sunny side on the Scots' prospects after a physically draining training session on a hot Brisbane morning yesterday.

"The Scots have been in that situation before where they haven't been given a chance," the 35-year-old Lam said.

"Everything is against them so there's nothing to lose.

"Everyone in the rugby world knows this would be the upset of the tournament and you can feel a bit of excitement in the squad."

None of the so-called big eight of international rugby has been as disappointing as Scotland at this tournament.

Fiji's combative hooker Greg Smith went as far as to suggest they were timid in last weekend's last-minute win which secured a quarter-final spot.

The Scots have been forced to come up with a makeshift loose forward combination after losing their first-choice No 7, Andrew Mower, through injury. Then Martin Leslie's eight-game ban for a kneeing incident against the United States compounded the problem.

Coach Ian McGeechan tossed regular wing Chris Paterson in at first five-eighths against Fiji after veteran Gregor Townsend's limp displays. That helped, but there is an unmistakable lack of fire in the squad.

There should be no need for opposition teams to indulge in spying operations, but apparently they have.

Lam said he was sure there had been prying eyes, but he was not losing any sleep over it.

"There's so much riding on these games and you can pick up a lot and pass it on. But we're not too worried about that. At the end of the day teams have all got their general patterns. You just want to have something up your sleeve."

And those rumours of rumblings in the camp?

"We've got 30 players and we're on our sixth week. Always you have eight players not involved in a game and that's tough. On a normal tour you would have mid-week games."

Lam is expecting changes in the Wallaby team, who are under the cosh from former players and critics for lacklustre form so far and just squeaked past Ireland by a point last weekend.

"Whatever team Australia put out will be strong because they've got such depth. We have to make sure we get ourselves prepared.

"People are very hard on the Australian team. Ireland's a very good side and what they did was get stuck into them."

Maybe Lam was dropping a hint for Saturday, but the Scots are not in Ireland's class and four days out it seems the best they can hope for is a damage-limitation exercise.