Scotland have suffered a late blow to their World Cup preparations, with Andy Henderson, the in-form centre who scored Scotland’s first hat-trick in almost 20 years against Ireland last month, pulling out of Sunday’s game against Portugal after failing to recover in time from the dead leg he suffered against South Africa.

“He played through it at the time,” Frank Hadden, the Scotland coach, said in St Etienne yesterday. “He had to have quite a significant amount of blood removed from it, it was pretty swollen, but he will be fine for the next game.”

Apart from that minor problem, the squad has come through all their late injuries and the remaining 29 are all ready to take their places on the pitch in Scotland’s opening match. “Chris Cusiter trained on Tuesday, as did Scott Lawson and Gavin Kerr. Sean Lamont had a bug at the start of the week but is now fine. Simon Taylor is fully patched up,” Hadden, going through the recent injuries, said. “We are all fine apart from Henderson.”

There is a strong feeling in the squad that now that they have settled into France, the phoney war of the months of preparation and training at Murrayfield is over and the real World Cup business can begin, with Hadden going out of his way to charm the local population.

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“I had forgotten until we arrived at the airport that I had actually worn the green scarf of the St Etienne football team at Hampden Park in 1976 when they lost to Bayern Munich in the European Cup final, “ he recalled. “They lost but I thoroughly enjoyed the evening in the company of the French and German fans.”

Not that Hadden, then a student, had any special connection with the town, it was more a case of supporting the underdog, but he is back renewing links with the same club 31 years later because Scotland have borrowed their facilities as a training base.

Meanwhile, he has been tapping into the coaches’ network to try to find out as much as possible about Portugal, ranked ten places below Scotland but something of an unknown quantity. “We have had some tapes and one thing I do know is that if they keep progressing at the rate they have been, they will be a real handful,” he said. “I spoke to John Kirwan, the coach of Japan who played them recently, and he said they were very awkward side to play against.”

That was a view echoed by Allister Hogg, the back row: “We are expecting a very intense start to the game. We have watched them on video, so we have a rough idea. Like any team that plays for their country, they are committed and there are some big men there. They are going to lap up the atmosphere and come out flying at us, so it is up to us to move the ball about and exploit our fitness.

“Being their first game in their first World Cup, I imagine they will be pretty enthusiastic and will be all over the pitch in the first 20 minutes. I would not imagine that we will be miles ahead at the end of the first quarter, but if we keep playing our patterns, we should get there.”

The Scotland team completed their preparations with a couple of touch matches against Glasgow and Edinburgh, who complete their pre-season work tonight with matches against London Wasps and Viadanna respectively, and Hadden said he was delighted with the obvious signs of progress the international players had made.

Meanwhile, in Marseilles, both New Zealand and Italy have named full-strength sides for the opening game in Scotland’s pool tomorrow. “It is important to see all the possibilities we have to develop our game,” Pierre Berbizier, the Italy coach, said. “I feel that the fact that the All Blacks are fielding such a strong starting XV is a sign of the respect they are showing Italy.

“We are preparing for the match against Scotland, but first we have to play three games. After those matches, then we’ll stop to think about Scotland.”