Scotland winger Tim Visser has admitted that his side will face a battle in every match if they are to make it past the group stages in this year's Rugby World Cup.
Vern Cotter's side have been drawn in a pool alongside South Africa, Samoa, Japan and the United States for the tournament, where they will be looking to improve on a dismal Six Nations showing in which they lost all five of their matches.
Visser admits that Scotland do have something to prove in the World Cup, but insists that there will be "no easy games" for his side.
"I guess we do have something to prove. Every team wants to make it out of the group stages and we are no different. We are just trying to get the physical stuff out of the way first and then I'm sure we will sit down and try and set out our goals and look at what we want to do. As a team we cannot look too far ahead. We have some really tough warm-up matches and then we cannot look further than Japan," he is quoted as saying by PA.
"If you look at world rugby nowadays there is no easy opposition. Italy used to be the team in the Six Nations that you that could hope for a win against, but we have had a tough time against them in the last couple of years. Ireland are on top of their game, France are getting back to where they were and they will all be tough games.
"Japan under Eddie Jones have come on leaps and bounds and they're a completely different team to the one we saw here four years ago. They are quick and dynamic and for the World Cup everyone will be raising their game.
"The USA - although we won over there last year - have a good team and good players and they will be ready for us. It is a different ball game now. I think our group is tricky and that is why you cannot look further than one game ahead. Samoa maybe five or six years ago you may have expected to beat them, but now they are tricky. We have beaten them twice and lost once in the last couple of years and they are a good team especially when they have their European-based stars back. There are no easy games."
Scotland's first match sees them take on Japan on September 23.
Barney Corkhill
