Beating Tonga a necessity for series success SCOTLAND must shrug off their old habit of underachieving against more lowly-ranked teams and defeat Tonga convincingly if they are to regard the autumn series as a success, captain Greig Laidlaw believes. One of the survivors from the last time the nations met, Laidlaw knows at first hand how difficult the Tongans will be, as three of them are his team-mates at Gloucester. But he has confidence in the fitness levels of the Scotland squad, and thinks that superior stamina will help the home team prevail at Rugby Park on Saturday, provided they play with the same intensity that they had against Argentina and New Zealand. "In the past these are the type of games that Scotland would have slipped up on," the scrum-half said yesterday. Vern [Cotter, the head coach] is very keen for that not to happen - as is the team. This game is hugely important and, if we finish this off with a good win, it will have been a good Autumn Tests. We got turned over a couple of years ago by them and we don't want that to happen again. We need to play for each other, play for the jersey and put in a good performance. If we do that, we can cap off this Autumn Test series with a good win and we can come together in the Six Nations with more confidence. We need to get the win first and foremost. We need a solid defensive effort for 80 minutes and more good attacking. We have to move the point of contact. These boys are made for rugby and like to come and hit. We need to look after the ball and play in the right areas of the field. Of the three Gloucester players in the Tongan squad - Sila Puafisi, Aleki Lutui and Sione Kalamafoni - Laidlaw knows Lutui best, as the hooker was also at Edinburgh at the same time. Tongan players generally have a reputation for physicality, but Laidlaw thinks Lutui is in a class of his own. The boys at Edinburgh will tell you that Aleki's pretty much made of concrete. Seriously, I don't know what he's made of. He's the hardest man I have ever came across. We'll need to chop his legs away from him - take his legs away from him in the tackle and he can't run. Put him on the deck, him and the rest of his team-mates. Make them keep getting off the ground. Put them on the deck. If we do that I think they'll run out of steam before us. The island boys are great to have in your team. They're all kind of laid back and they're good men as well. On the field they're hard and aggressive, but they'll come up and shake your hand afterwards. Someone like Aleki will do anything for you. You make good friends along the way and rugby's a great sport to be involved in because of it. We won't be friends on the field. That won't just be coming from our side. We're solely fixed on a massive performance and getting a good win. We have to hold our discipline against the Tongans and give them nothing cheap. No free rides out their own half. Discipline as always is the key factor in the game. A good trait is to expect the unexpected with these boys - they're hard to analyse. One week they'll do one thing, the next week they'll do the other. If we get ourselves right we'll be okay. If our minds start wandering away, [like] the game two years ago we'll come unstuck. Laidlaw knows that the moment when his kick wandered just wide of the posts against New Zealand last week will go down as one of the great "What if?" incidents in Scottish rugby. The home team would have gone ahead by two points with ten minutes to play if the penalty had been scored, the miss left the captain slapping his own head in frustration, and the All Blacks stretched their lead with a converted try. But now, with another match to prepare for, Laidlaw will leave the speculation to others. You need to park it. That's sport. That's life. Clearly I'd have loved it to go over - I'm the first person to be annoyed with myself and I was more than annoyed with myself. We had a good review [of the New Zealand game] and there were clearly a lot of positives, but there are a few things we have to get better at. We looked at our defence and for a large part we defended brilliantly but let in a couple of soft tries. That was disappointing. To hold New Zealand to a couple of tries is pretty decent, but at the end of the day they scraped past us by eight points. It was tough to take but there were a lot of positives and we have to build on it. I spend hours on my kicking and it's something I have to move on from. We win together, we lose together. It's gone now, we get back on the horse, and our focus is the Tonga match.