Tuesday 15 November 2016 16:06, UK
Greig Laidlaw is well aware how important Saturday's clash with Argentina could be in the long-term for Scottish rugby.
Scotland take on the Pumas at Murrayfield in the knowledge that victory would move them above their Rugby Championship opponents into eighth in the world rankings.
The draw for the next World Cup in Japan takes place in May next year and those same rankings will form the basis for the seedings.
Scotland dropped into the third batch of seeds for last year's tournament in England, but they were somewhat fortunate with the draw as they took on the weakest of the second seeds - Samoa - in their group and ended up being the last northern hemisphere side to be knocked out.
But Laidlaw concedes Scotland might not be so lucky again and he is keen that they secure a top-eight position in the list by the time the draw comes around.
"The rankings issue is clearly very important. When you have World Cups coming up they are always in the back of your mind," the Gloucester scrum-half said.
"We certainly don't want to drop out of the pot of second seeds. I'd rather not be doing that if we can help it. World Cups are hard enough.
"Statistically in the past, it has been shown that teams always play better at the World Cup, so we want to give this Scotland side the best possible chance of getting as far in the competition as possible.
"Even though it's further down the line, it's important we win as many games as we can.
"We'll try to get in that mindset that we are making sure we don't give away penalties and that we play for the full 80 minutes.
"If we do that we'll have a much better chance of winning and that will take care of the world ranking points.
"The rankings certainly won't be something we talk about on the field. It is just about the process. What do we need to do? What is going well? What do we need to sharpen up on.
"Credit to Argentina because they have realised they need to change their game. I'm not sure whether that is because they have joined the Rugby Championship or not but they are a good team to watch.
"Hopefully they won't be that good this weekend and we can get up and put some pressure on them."
