Scotland have not enjoyed a victory over the Wallabies since 1982, losing their last 16 meetings with this weekend's opponents.

Should Cusiter and his team-mates manage to end that sequence, they will go down in Scottish rugby folklore.

"Beating Australia is the first thing on our minds," Cusiter said ahead of his second start as captain.

"We've spoken all week about how we're going to do it, how we feel we need to play and the quality of work that's needed to beat Australia."

The scrum-half, who was less than a month old the last time Scotland toppled the Wallabies, added: "We're aware of that 27-year gap.

"It's a long time and it means all the great sides - the 1990 Grand Slam side - were never able to beat Australia.

"It's a huge chance to make history but, ultimately, we have to perform."

Like everyone in the Scotland set-up, Cusiter had mixed feelings about Saturday's opening autumn international against Fiji, something which was perhaps summed up by the muted celebrations afterwards.

"We went back to the hotel and watched X Factor together and had a quiet night," he said. "We knew we had a big game this week so we took it easy."

The burden of captaincy did not appear to affect Cusiter's game in what was his 45th cap.

"The first thing about being captain is to put in a good performance yourself and my focus was on that," he said.

"Myself and some of the guys around me - the other leaders in the team - we controlled things well."