Even when you take into account that the Scots have the likes of Richie Gray in their line-up, the Samoan pack is just that: huge.
There is no getting away from the size of the challenge, or the rewards on offer if Scotland can carry it off. No Scotland team has embarked on a three-match summer tour and come back with a clean sweep, and achieving that feat for the first time will be the lure for the team when they run out on to Apia Park in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
In contrast with Fiji, who have made a conscious decision to pledge their immediate future to locally based players, Samoa are a team of professionals, many of them at the leading clubs in Europe and New Zealand, and they have the hardened, tough edge that that brings. If Scotland have the same kind of wobble that they did in Fiji, then Samoa have the experience and the ability to exploit it in a way that their Pacific neighbours did not.
The team named yesterday to face Scotland has only five players who are not at leading clubs. It is not just they are playing top-flight rugby, mainly in Europe, but they are playing for clubs that win things: Census Johnston the prop is at Toulouse, the French champions; Maurie Faasavalu, the flanker is at Harlequins, the English champions; Kahn Fotualii, the scrum half is at the Ospreys, the RaboDirect Pro12 champions. While the Scottish clubs have had decent seasons, there is not a single player in the squad who has actually won anything.
On top of that, Kane Thompson, the No.8, is helping the Chiefs, the Hamilton-based franchise in New Zealand, to a leading spot in this season's Super Rugby competition. There are few obvious weaknesses in the line-up.
"It is going to be a tough game," acknowledged Ross Ford, the Scotland captain. "Samoa have got a lot of strengths, a lot of the European players are back and that makes it a strong squad. They are a lot more structured than Fiji but still have the ability to break defences with their big men and good steppers. They will be very physical so it will be a tough challenge, but one that the boys are looking forward to. A win would round the tour off well."
It is clear that one place the Samoans will fancy their chances is in the scrum where their mighty props will be at a considerable weight advantage. Ford is not worried: "They are big so that means that we have got to be technically smart" he said.
"We are not going to stick any more meat on over the next couple of days so we have got to be quick and we have got to be technically very good on the day to compete against them."
For Ford and his colleagues, the task is simple on paper. Get parity or better up front and then hang on to the ball long enough to make the pressure pay. They probably have a marginal advantage in the goalkicking department where Greig Laidlaw is more reliable than either Tusi Pisi or Paul Williams, the two likely kickers in the Samoa line-up, and have dangerous strike runners in the likes of Sean Lamont and Tim Visser, but if they hand over the ball with the alacrity they did in Fiji, they will be punished.
"We gave the ball away too cheaply, so this week we have got to be really switched on and keep a hold of the ball a lot longer to pile up a lot more pressure," said Ford, acknowledging that it was not just the handling but the breakdown work that was at fault.
Two years ago, when Samoa should have escaped with a draw in freezing conditions in Aberdeen, it was another sloppy performance at the breakdown that caused most of Scotland's problems and helped catapult Fotualii from anonymity to being recognised as one of the world's top scrum-halves. Samoa know their big back row can get to Scotland in that department and will be looking to exploit their power there again.
The other unknown is the effect of the tropical weather. As the locals have been pointing out in Apia this week, the downside of having their players based in Europe is that they lose their acclimatisation to the tropical temperatures in Samoa, making it a much more even contest to see who can stand the heat, with Samoa having arrived in the country after playing in Japan two days after Scotland had arrived from Fiji.
"It is very important that we win and round off the tour on a high," added Ford. Certainly the mood in the camp could not be more different from the one at the end of the Six Nations.
All they have to do is keep it that way.
