SCOTLAND centre Mark Bennett is confident that his team can take the game to the Australians in Sunday’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final. The Glasgow Warriors back knows his team are underdogs for the match at Twickenham, but believes that Scottish sides usually respond best in that situation.

“It tends to be the way it goes,” he said. “We always seem to be up against it and everyone does write us off, but I think the Scottish culture thrives on that.

“I’m looking forward to it. It’s a huge opportunity for us. We’ve got nothing to lose, because no-one is expecting us to do well bar the squad itself. So yeah, let’s get into them.

“We’re going to go out and attack and take the game to them. The only way we’re going to beat them is by going at them. We’re not going to win by sitting off and trying to stay in the game till the latter stages.

“We want to go at them, though I’ve no doubt they’ll be saying exactly the same. So I reckon you could be in for a good one.”

After Scotland let in four tries against Samoa last week, Bennett knows that a better performance in defence will be needed against the Wallabies. As one of the shortest and lightest members of the team, he is aware he can be targeted by opponents’ big runners. But he is sure that he and his team-mates are up for the challenge - and that they are a far better team now than they were during the Six Nations Championship.

“I think they’re a smart team. They play some exciting rugby, expansive rugby. You’ve got [Matt] Giteau at 12, an outstanding player. I played against him for Glasgow against Toulon and he was excellent that day. I’m looking forward to that battle.

“They have a big man at 13 [Tevita Kuridrani] who will always try to get over the gain line. It’s a challenge for us, but I’m always up against someone who’s bigger than me, so I’m used to it now.

“We performed pretty well in the Six Nations, played some good rugby and exciting rugby, but just didn’t get the results. You’re starting to see that we’re a much better side then we were.

“We were playing good rugby and it was always just little things in the Six Nations. If one or two passes had stuck we would have been scoring tries. That’s what we’re trying to do. It makes a big difference when you’re finishing them off.”

Meanwhile, Scotland have appealed against the three-week ban slapped on Jonny Gray and Ross Ford for foul play against Samoa, but it still looks unlikely that head coach Vern Cotter will have either forward available for Sunday. The Scots are appealing against the length of the ban, not the guilty verdict, and the best they can hope for is probably a reduction to one week in the case of Ford.

If the bans stand, both men will miss the rest of the World Cup even if Scotland get to the final. If the Scots lose on Sunday, the rest of the ban will have to be served by Gray sitting out Glasgow matches and Ford missing out on Edinburgh games.

Cotter will announce his team today.