Defiant David Denton is convinced Scotland will bounce back from their bashing from the Boks but only if they stop having nervous breakdowns.
The Edinburgh powerhouse reckons his side must get their act together when it comes to competing for the loose ball and protecting possession.
And he warned of another walloping at the hands of Australia on Saturday if they don’t show a huge improvement at Murrayfield on Saturday.
Breakaway forward Denton declared: “The solution is simple we have to fix our breakdown.
“During the summer we were really good against South Africa on their own turf because we got that part of our game right.
“Our movement at the breakdown was a second and a half faster than theirs and that is a lot.
“Essentially, in modern international rugby the only way to get on to the front foot is to win the breakdowns,” he added.
“If you are too slow, you will get hit back so this week there will be a massive focus on that before we take on Australia.”
Denton said: “If we want to get forward and score against them, we must be efficient in this department.
“You only have to look at their guy Michael Hooper. He has been performing brilliantly. Not only will we have to get it right, we will have to nullify him.
“The most frustrating aspect of our breakdown play is that it changes from game to game. What we need is some consistency.”
Denton added: “We can do all these things we have shown we can play rugby in that manner. You need a tough mindset and one of the positives we took from the Springboks match was that we didn’t fold.
“In that situation the floodgates could have opened, but we showed a lot of character in the second half and held them back for a long time.
“To score no points in a test is very annoying because we are a better team than that. It would be great to get the ball out to our wingers this weekend then we can get some tries.
“There is no question they are a good side and we have to be at our best to beat them.
“We are more than capable of that. We showed in South Africa that we can match their brutality, their physicality.