SCOTLAND coach Vern Cotter could take up to the last minute to decide on his final squad of 31 for the Rugby World Cup.

Cotter will announce his team tomorrow after cutting nine players from his current squad, but after Saturday’s 48-7 win over Italy he admitted he was still not sure of the split between forwards and backs.

“We’ve got players who can play several positions,” he said. “We’re still waiting for a full update on injuries before we do anything. We’re still waiting to decide if it’s an 18-13 or 17-14 split.”

Even within the forwards, the coach was unsure how many he would select for each position.

He is expected to name all three hookers who are in the squad, but the back row in particular is up in the air.

“I don’t know yet,” Cotter said when asked if he would choose six back-row players from the current group of nine. “It could be five or six. Three or four for locks. We don’t know yet.”

The biggest dilemma in the backs is whether to choose Glasgow’s Alex Dunbar.

The Warriors centre has been out with ligament damage since February but is now close to full fitness. Teams can replace injured players after their final squads are named, but it is still unsure whether that means Dunbar will be included then dropped if he fails a later fitness test, or whether he will be left out until another back is injured.

“He’s one of two things,” said the coach.

“He can be selected and play a PRO12 game, not be selected and do the same thing – but still be involved later. So there are a couple of theories on that. We’re still waiting for the dust to settle from today.”

Scotland were excellent against Italy at Murrayfield, scoring six tries. Glasgow wing Sean Lamont got two, as did his Edinburgh counterpart Tim Visser, and there were other scores for Warriors centre Mark Bennett and former Glasgow player John Barclay.

Captain Greig Laidlaw added 16 points with four penalties and two conversions, and there was also a conversion from Finn Russell after the scrum-half had been substituted.

The only points in a poor performance by the Italians came from a try by Michele Campagnaro, converted by Tommy Allan.

It was a much improved showing by Scotland after they had struggled to beat Italy 16-12 in Turin a week earlier, but Cotter seemed unimpressed.

He insisted that his players needed to keep working hard if they were to continue the improvement they have made in the series of warm-up matches, which ends in France on Saturday. “We haven’t done anything yet,” he said. “We haven’t done anything.

“We’re working to try to improve and we’ve got a World Cup starting in three weeks.

"We need to roll our sleeves up, keep rolling them up – and dig our toes in the soil. Because the work isn’t finished yet. We’ve got a lot to do.

“We look at it realistically. We got a score, we got a win, and it was fantastic to be out in front of a home crowd. But we’ve got a lot more work to do.”

The team selected for the Italy game was close to the strongest available to Cotter, but he refused to say what his selection policy would be for the match in the Stade de France. “I’ll need to have a look at my 31 first,” he said.