Scotland must start well if they are any chance of upsetting Australia in Monday’s quarter final according to prop Alasdair Dickinson, just a week after leaking 26 points in the first half of their final pool match against Samoa.

Needing victory to book a spot in the knockout stages, the Scots trailed Samoa 26-23 at the break before scrum half Greig Laidlaw scored 13 second half points to secure the win.

“It’s something we need to sort out… It’s a sort of one million pound question,” Dickinson said

“Against the top teams we can’t afford to start slowly, because you can’t come back. You let them get too far ahead and they get a head of steam and you’ve got an absolute mountain to climb.”

Dickinson said he’s confident his side has the ability to come out of the gates strongly, but was happy to claim the underdog tag as Scotland look to book a spot in just their second World Cup semi-final.

“I’m not too sure it’s a mental thing because if you look at the Six Nations, it’s kind of flipped the script a little bit. It’s just concentrating on doing the simple things really well. It’s getting a foothold in the game quite quickly and laying down some good foundations early on.

“That’s going to be tough against Australia when you look what they’ve done so far.I don’t know if there’s a magic formula for starting any game well but that’s what we need to do to piece together an 80-minute performance.”

The 32-year-old Edinburgh tighthead has been one of the best Scots best through the pool stages, leading a Scottish scrum that will look to pressure the ever-improving Australia on Monday morning.

“I think the scrum’s gone well. That’s just years and months and weeks of just chipping away, just doing little things, trying to get slowly better.

“We’re not going to underestimate Australia’s scrum, by any stretch of the imagination. Just look what they did to England. We’re not getting carried away with that. We know we’ve still got to improve our scrum.“

Dickinson’s fellow prop, loosehead Willem ‘WP’ Nel, has labelled Scotland as a ‘dark horse’ to take out the entire World Cup, however he wasn’t looking too far ahead.

”I’m pretty old school. For me, it’s just the next game,” Dickinson said. “When you start thinking too far ahead, you’re going to slip up.

“It’s going to be a huge test for us against Australia. They’re definitely the form team so far. They were outstanding against England and showed how clinical they can be in that Wales match.

“If you look at it on paper, who would think we have a chance? I wouldn’t say anybody is going to say that Scotland are going to win. You might get the odd one putting a tenner on us, chancing his arm… No, if he’s Scottish, it wouldn’t be a tenner; it would be 50p.