There's no substitute for experience in international rugby, but for once it is the youngsters in the Scotland touring party that may have the edge as they gear up to play Argentina on Saturday. Not even the likes of Chris Paterson, poised to overtake Scott Murray as Scotland's most capped player, have played in South America, but the quartet from the 2005 under-21 squad have been in action there before.

“It was quite an experience, especially playing Argentina in the last game,” Ross Ford, the Scotland hooker, said. “Even at that level, they were a very physical, they pride themselves on their scrum and their power in the physical contact area. They love that kind of confrontation. They have a lot of passion and go all out for it.”

Ford is joined by Johnnie Beattie, Nick De Luca and Ben Cairns in having moved from the age-group ranks when the Junior World Championship was staged in Mendoza, to return to Argentina three years later as a fully-fledged international, but he still has good memories of his time in the country. “It is a great place to play, a good culture, absolutely brilliant,” he said. “All the local clubs picked a team to support so that you would go out into the street and hear kids chanting and see people waving to you. They really got behind the team and supported it. All that changed when we took on Argentina, of course.”

The omens from that tournament are mixed. While they lost 39-7 to the hosts, Scotland still finished sixth, the best of the British nations and the best result the country has achieved in the age-group tournament. Despite that, Ford reckons that he has seen enough of the way Argentina play from that tournament and facing them in the full World Cup last year, to know how to beat them, the first essential being not to allow yourself to get intimidated by the size of the Puma pack.

“They grow them big over there,” Ford said. “You have to enjoy these big hard tussles, it is good to go and test yourself against players like that.”

The other key is to be prepared for the over-the-top displays of emotion. “They all have plenty of passion,” he said. “They are more emotional, crying and all that, but it does not mean they want it any more than we do. They just show it more and we have to handle that.”