The Edinburgh Rugby player was handed a starting place against the Japanese by coach Matt Williams after impressing as a second-half substitute in their 31-14 defeat to Australia.

The 24-year-old was rewarded with his fifth cap for his efforts but the insists the game - at Perths McDiarmid Park - will be no formality, especially if the Scots kicking is wayward.

He said: People think Japan are not a very good side but theyve beaten Italy, theyve smashed Canada and theyre 12th in the world whilst were ninth.

The reality is that theyre not that far behind us and although everyone expects us to win, its not going to be an easy game and we cant afford to be complacent because we havent won for a long time.

Running with the ball is Japans main threat so weve got to be wary of kicking it back to them because they will compete on the counter attack.

If we kick it out we have confidence in our the line-outs to compete against them, so we need to be careful about kicking aimless balls.

Southwell admits some painful lessons were learned against the Wallabies last week, but he hopes for a repeat of the stirring second-half performance when the Scots put up more of a fight.

He said: It was a 20-minute period that really cost us and you cant afford to lose your concentration for 20 minutes against a side like Australia because they will punish you.

I think they got three tries in that period and we cant afford to do that even against Japan because they will also punish us. So weve got to keep our concentration for 80 minutes.

We played some brilliant rugby in the second half and kept Australia at bay in defence for long periods and weve just got to learn to do that more often.


Scotland: Hugo Southwell; Chris Paterson, Ben Hinshelwood, Andrew Henderson, Sean Lamont; Dan Parks, Chris Cusiter; Allan Jacobsen, Gordon Bulloch, Gavin Kerr, Stuart Grimes, Nathan Hines, Allister Hogg, Jon Petrie, Donnie Macfadyen
Replacements: Robbie Russell, Craig Smith, Scott MacLeod, Jason White, Mike Blair, Gordon Ross, Graeme Morrison


Japan: Ryohei Miki; Koichiro Kubota, Seiichi Shimomura, Yukio Motoki, Hayato Daimon; Keisuke Sawaki, Wataru Ikeda, Yuichi Hisadomi, Takashi Yamaoka, Ryo Yamamura, Takanori Kumagai, Hitoshi Ono, Naoya Okubo, Hajime Kiso, Takuro Miuchi.
Replacements: Mitsugu Yamamoto, Masahito Yamamoto, Feletliki Mau, Takatoyo Yamaguchi, Kiyonori Tanaka, Masatoshi Mukoyama, Hideyuki Yoshida