Bouncebackability.

A big mouthful of a word, but a pretty useful quality to have as a top sportsman. So it's just as well that Greig Laidlaw has it in spades.

The Scotland captain's gift for putting disappointments behind him was shown often enough in his years at Edinburgh. There are some goal-kickers who go to pieces after one miss, but from Laidlaw's bearing you could never tell whether he had just landed one from the wrong touchline or sclaffed one wide from straight in front of the posts.

In which light, his brief flash of frustration after missing the 69th-minute penalty that would have nudged Scotland ahead of New Zealand - and on the cusp of a first win against the All Blacks - was an uncharacteristic moment in Laidlaw's life. Granted, you would still have backed him to knock the next one over blindfold, but that chance never came and the All Blacks pulled away with another try for their 24-16 win.

"You need to park it," said the Gloucester scrum-half. "That's sport. That's life. Clearly I would have loved it to go over. I am the first person to be annoyed with myself and I was more than annoyed with myself then.

"I spend hours on my kicking and it is something I have to move on from. We win together, we lose together. It has gone now, we get back on the horse and our focus is the Tonga match. We got turned over a couple of years ago by them and we don't want that to happen again."

Tonga, the final item on the viagogo Autumn Tests menu, will face Scotland at Kilmarnock on Saturday afternoon. If the first kick Laidlaw lines up at Rugby Park is an opportunity to banish the memory of the All Blacks game, a victory over the Pacific Islanders will have an equally cathartic quality after what happened at Pittodrie in November 2012.

Tonga's 21-15 victory that day hammered the final nail into the coffin of Andy Robinson's three-year reign as Scotland coach. It has also been a black stain across the cv's of all the Scotland players who were involved that day. Laidlaw, then playing at fly-half, kicked all Scotland's points with five penalties, but even that contribution cannot soften his recollections of the occasion. "I have huge regrets about that game," he said. "It was the low point in my Scotland career."

However, Laidlaw was adamant that it also showed how tough the Pacific Islanders can be. "Tonga are not mugs," he said firmly. "People keep telling me this is the easiest game. Tell that when you are out on the pitch when these guys are coming at you at 100 miles an hour.

"They are a tough team to play against. They showed that two years ago and will show that again. They are an improved team as well. They had a good 2011 World Cup and have been building since then. Jake White [who coached South Africa to a World Cup victory in 2007] is helping them now as well."

Laidlaw seems to have rediscovered his zest for rugby since his summer move from Edinburgh to Gloucester. That switch has also given him a fresh insight into the kind of players Tonga produces, as he has three of the current squad as clubmates at Kingsholm: tighthead prop Sila Puafisi, hooker Aleki Lutui - who was also a teammate at Edinburgh - and flanker Sione Kalamafoni.

The Scotland captain is clear that his side has to take the Tongans on physically if they are to avoid a repeat of the Pittodrie debacle.

"The boys at Edinburgh will tell you that Aleki is pretty much made of concrete, " he said. "He is the hardest man I have ever come across. We will need to chop his legs away from him. Take his legs away from him in the tackle and he can't run.

"We have to put him and the rest of his team-mates on the deck. Make them keep getting off the ground. Put them on the deck, put them on the deck. If we do that they will run out of steam before us.

"A good trait is to expect the unexpected with these boys. They are hard to analyse. One week they will do one thing, the next week they will do the other. But if we get ourselves right we will be okay. We have to hold our discipline against and give them nothing cheap. No free rides out their own half.

"But they are good men as well. On the field they are hard and aggressive but will come up and shake your hand afterwards. Someone like Aleki will do anything for you. You make good friends along the way and rugby is a great sport to be involved in because of it."

Laidlaw believes that one more impressive performance by the Scots will put them in a good frame of mind going into a big year of Test rugby ahead.

"This game is hugely important," he explained. "If we can finish this off with a good win it will have been a good autumn for us. Going into the Six Nations, teams will realise that. We have three [Six Nations] games at home and I am confident we can do well in that and in a World Cup that is creeping ever closer."