Two tries a game against the top two teams in the world. That is the goal that is to be laid in front of the Scotland players when they head out to La Manga in Spain tomorrow to start their preparations for the autumn internationals. To achieve that, Mike Brewer, the forwards coach, says he is planning a radical revamp of the way the pack plays.

“It will be a different shift, quite a move away from home but they have played that way in the past,” he says. “I will be looking for a more physical approach, I have made it pretty clear to the guys that the game is now very much won or lost in the set-piece and at the contact zone. If you cannot match the opposition in those collisions, you will come off second best and we will be playing two of the most physical sides in the world [New Zealand and South Africa].”

If there is any sense of embarrassment at the decision to take the national side away from the deluge that passes for a Scottish autumn, there is no sign of it. The building work being done on the back pitches at Murrayfield means that they have to move anyway, so why not to somewhere enjoyable.

And for Brewer - and, presumably, likewise for Graham Steadman, the new defence coach - the opportunity to get into camp with the squad, have the players around all day, and to be able to work intensively with them out on the warm and, with luck, dry pitches in daylight and in the video analysis room late into the evening, is too good a chance to miss.

“We will be playing a different kind of game altogether, so it is a matter of having the time with the team to sort out all these things,” he says. “This Scotland squad have the potential to reach the level they need to be and a few of them are there already. I watched Euan Murray playing at Northampton and he is as physical as John Afoa or Tony Woodcock, the guys he will be marking. There are other guys whose technique needs to be worked on and that is one of the things we will be addressing.”

Technique is vital, and Brewer is very much one for the little details that add up. “You can get by on blood, sweat, tears, desire, emotion, nationalism and all of those things against the lesser teams but against the top teams, if the technical side is not right, if the building blocks are not technically correct, then you're rarely going to win,” he says. “You may sneak the odd result but you're not going to build a win, and that is the only reliable way of doing it.” Hence, seven days of intense, detailed work.

The locks have to be more physical, so out go the specialist lineout operators like Ally Kellock and Scott Murray and in comes the bruising physicality of Matt Mustchin. Simon Taylor will be told he has to start controlling games from No8, and will be shown how to do so. Jason White is lucky to be in the squad at all after hardly playing since his return from a summer knee operation. Both White and Taylor are covering lock on the basis that they bring more physicality than their main rivals.

What is impressive about all this, and the clear evidence of the hours spent poring over analysis tapes - Brewer has set up internet pages that players can log into to see the results of his investigations - is that he is leaving no stone unturned to get a result over New Zealand, the team that he used to captain. No question of divided loyalties there.

“It is a huge honour to be coaching against the All Blacks,” he says. “Just as it is for the players to try to make a bit of history by beating them.”

In fact taking charge of New Zealand one day is far from impossible, because this is his first foray into international coaching after three years of turning Leinster's pack from the fancy Dans of club rugby into a fearsome unit capable of taking the London Wasps eight apart.

“We have set ourselves the target of scoring at least two tries against both sides, something that Scotland have not been good at,” Brewer says. “With the way the game is going and the penalties that will come, if you can kick the six or nine points, add two tries and are accurate in defence, then the opposition are going to have to be pretty good to win. That's the plan. The trick is trying to pull it off.”