FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Rangers v Celtic - Ibrox, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - May 4, 2025 Scottish Rugby Union head coach Gregor Townsend in the stands REUTERS/Russell Cheyne/File Photo
SUVA (Reuters) -Scotland are aware that vital World Cup seeding points are up for grabs when they take on Fiji in a test on their Pacific tour, adding to the importance of the contest on Saturday, said coach Gregor Townsend.
In the December draw for the 2027 World Cup in Australia, the top six in the World Rugby rankings will earn a seeding in the first round pools for the tournament that has been expanded to 24 teams, making a win vital for seventh-placed Scotland.
At the 2023 World Cup, Scotland were unseeded and ended up being paired with Ireland and South Africa in the group stage and failed to get past the first round.
"This is a very important game along with next week's test against Samoa and also the tests we have in November to put ourselves in the best possible position to get in that top six," Townsend said at a virtual press conference on Thursday.
Scotland are narrowly behind sixth-placed Argentina on points, putting the seeding firmly on players' minds.
"That can be a bit of added pressure and that's good. These games are all massive and our approach is to go out and win," added Rory Darge, who captains the side in Suva on Saturday.
"It's something we've talked about but we can't really look beyond Fiji in Fiji because that's going to be a massive challenge," he said.
Townsend said Scotland's approach on their tour, which started with a hard-fought win over the Maori All Blacks in New Zealand last weekend, was to field two separate teams for the opening two matches.
"We'd planned to mix it up which is an element of risk. But what I believe works well for us, and has worked in the past, you get that cohesion with this team that is going out against Fiji, having trained together now for the last two or three weeks," the coach added.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
