Scotland bid to secure a place in the middle tier, contesting places 5-8, for the final two rounds of the IRB World Junior Championship when they face Samoa at the Stade Pascal Laporte in Nantes in the final match of Pool C tonight.

To achieve their goal, they must score four of more tries against Samoa and, even then, a place in the middle group would be dependent on France losing to South Africa without gaining a bonus point. The teams are ranked 1-12 after the completion of tonight's group games and Scotland will be bidding to gain a place in the middle group for the first time since the event switched from under-21 to under-20.

"Over the past two years, we've not won a pool match," said Sean Lineen, Scotland's under-20 coach. "It's a massive carrot for the boys. We let ourselves down against Argentina, but we bounced back against Wales and had a real chance to win that game. We missed three penalty kicks, which proved costly, but the bonus point we achieved could be important.

"I believe we have it in us to win against Samoa, although they looked much better against Argentina. They are very physical and you have to take them on; you can't lie off them. I remember from my own experience in the 1991 World Cup; we played them at their own game and won," recalled Lineen. "The set-piece will be very important, as will playing the game in the right areas. The Samoans are very good when the game is unstructured."

TEAM. Scotland U20 (v Samoa U20, Stade Pascal  Laporte, Nantes) J Kilmartin; J Farndale, C Auld, R Fergusson, D Hoyland; T Allan, A Price; J Malcolm, R Anderson, D Rae, E Masterson, J Gray (capt), T Spinks, A Henderson, A Ashe. Substitutes: C Black, J Bhatti, P Cringle, R Leishman, W Bordill, S Steele, B Cooper, R Hughes