Scotland’s hopes of breaking the hoodoo by claiming their first win over Australia for 27 years took a knock yesterday when Mike Blair, one of the two joint captains, was ruled out of the match, having failed to recover from the ankle injury that forced him from the field two minutes from the end of last week’s win over Fiji.

His place on the bench has now gone to Rory Lawson, the Gloucester scrum half, though Andy Robinson, the Scotland head coach, was yesterday hedging his bets on who would take over the captaincy assuming that Chris Cusiter, the starting leader, is replaced, as is usual, late in the second half.

Nor was Robinson prepared to see the late switch as a reason for changing his feelings about the game. “It is not a blow at all,” he said. “We have to focus on who we do have. Rory [Lawson] will just slot in — he has been with us for two weeks and trained well and has been playing for Gloucester, so he is in form and has been champing at the bit.”

Robinson knows this is a game that Scotland can win if they turn in the kind of performance he believes they are capable of producing, but also a match in which they could get well-beaten if they don’t step up from the display last week.

Both teams are in a state of transition: the Wallabies are blooding the next generation of players and trying to recover from a dire Tri-Nations campaign; Scotland are adjusting to the new coaching regime while also trying out fresh talent.

It was actually Robbie Deans, Robinson’s opposite number in the Australian camp, who put the comparison best. “They [Scotland] are a side not dissimilar to us,” he said. “They are knocking on the door and pretty keen to get through, so are we. We will see who goes through first.”

Robinson also sees comparisons. “There are parallels, but the other aspect for them [Australia] is that rugby league and Aussie Rules are so strong there and players are brought up catching and kicking a ball,” he said. “The Australian mindset is that they are the most competitive animals that you can meet, they can compete over anything. They are a young team that is developing well and is unbeaten on this tour. They have had a very good win against England and a good performance [in the draw] against Ireland, so we have to raise the level of how we are going to perform.”

The key for the Scotland head coach is speed. Not just getting the quick men into the game, but doing everything faster than has often been the Scottish habit. “We have to play with quicker ball,” Robinson said. “Speed of ball and being able to play off the first receiver is an important part of how I coach. We were not able to really establish that last week.

“We have to ask more questions of how Australia defend. We have to do that in different ways, we were a bit one-dimensional in the way we attacked [against Fiji], just trying to attack through our forwards.”

The history books record that Scotland have not won against Australia since the first international of their 1982 tour, losing 16 consecutive games. They have played five times since the sides met in the 2003 World Cup, with Australia scoring four or more tries and 31 or more points on every occasion. To counter any gloom of those statistics is the fact that this Wallaby side have won only two of their last nine matches, while Scotland have won three of their last nine; though that is not a comparison that can be taken too far because the Scotland wins were against Canada, Italy and Fiji while Australia’s were against South Africa and England.

The main point is that this is not the usual super-confident Australia side coming to Europe on a roll. Scotland know that they are more vulnerable now than they have been in any of the last half-dozen meetings.

“We know we have to raise our performance to get a result,” Alastair Kellock, the Scotland lock, said. “I got my first cap against them, so I am very much looking forward to playing them again. You don’t beat a team like Australia by sitting back and seeing what they’ve got. You have to play and force them into making mistakes.”

Scotland: R Lamont (Toulon); S Lamont (Scarlets), A Grove (Worcester), G Morrison (Glasgow), S Danielli (Ulster); P Godman (Edinburgh), C Cusiter (Glasgow; captain); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), M Low (Glasgow), N Hines (Leinster), A Kellock (Glasgow), A Strokosch (Gloucester), J Barclay (Glasgow), J Beattie (Glasgow). Replacements: D Hall (Glasgow), K Traynor (Edinburgh), J White (Clermont Auvergne), R Vernon (Glasgow), R Lawson (Gloucester), C Paterson (Edinburgh), N De Luca (Edinburgh).

Australia: A Ashley-Cooper; P Hynes, R Cross, Q Cooper, D Mitchell; M Giteau, W Genia; B Robinson, S Moore, B Alexander, J Horwill, M Chisholm, R Elsom (captain), G Smith, W Palu. Replacements: T Polota-Nau, S Kepu, D Mumm, R Brown, L Burgess, L Turner, J O’Connor.

Referee: R Poite (France).

Television: Live BBC Two (kick-off 5.15pm)