Facing a side only just beginning to get properly organised, with great ambitions, but who are struggling to find the resources to become professional, Scotland could be forgiven for thinking they have heard it all before.

As they bid to inject some momentum into this tour, how-ever, they may well be advised to have a chat with members of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists who are sharing their hotel, to try to fully understand the kind of mind games they are likely to be subjected to.

In Fiji the home team's Kiwi coach Brad Johnstone did a magnificent job of down-playing his side's chances before last Tuesday's Test match. In Melbourne the local press is full of the same message.

Only two months ago, they report, Victoria were thrashed 65-0 by the New South Wales Country side Scotland will meet next Tuesday, which is a warning in itself. New coach John Kelsey admits he realised at that point the extent of the task he had taken on with a state that claims to have Super 12 aspirations in the longer term.

''It was a total shambles. I'd come in with my eyes open, but after that I really knew I had a lot of work to do,'' he said.

Having said which, Victoria have improved to the extent that in a recent return match with New South Wales Country they lost only 31-24. Indeed, their coach believes that a win over the tourists is now a realistic ambition, albeit the commercial restraints under which he is operating are likely to be demonstrated with a crowd of only around 6000 expected at Melbourne's Olympic Park this afternoon.

There can be no doubt that the Scotland management have identified the two matches following this one, as more difficult fixtures. There is a growing expectation that something close to a Test side will face both New South Wales Country and New South Wales in the space of five days.

Yet, in terms of the well-being of this tour, today's game is of equal, if not greater significance. As things stand this is the only one of the seven remaining matches, in which Scotland will start as favourites. That may be a harsh assessment of a national side embarking on a sequence of four provincial matches before the first Test on June 13, but it is currently an accurate one that won't change unless Scotland win their next two matches in some style.

That said, manager Arthur Hastie was right to place the emphasis on the result, rather than the manner of achieving it, in looking ahead to this meeting with the side regarded as the worst in Australian state rugby.

''To get a good win would be excellent, but we'll be satisfied as long as we simply get a win at this stage,'' he said.

Worrying parallels with the Fijians apart, it is interesting to note, ahead of this first match in Australia, the similarities between Kelsey's approach towards building the credibility of Victoria and the way Scotland are seeking to bolster their playing strength. The Victoria coach, himself originally an outsider from Canberra, has put together a squad which, as well as homegrown talent, includes players from New South Wales, Queensland, Canberra, New Zealand, Tonga, Western Samoa, Fiji and South Africa.

Scotland's squad, too, as has been well documented, has a cosmopolitan look to it.

Observations were made after the Scotland A team's Grand Slam season on the larger percentage of players from Scottish clubs in their side compared with the senior team, suggesting greater passion in their approach. Yet that neatly overlooked the fact that among those home-based Scots were New Zealand born immigrants Glenn Metcalfe and Cammy Mather.

Nothing breeds confidence like success on the field and that, more than anything else, is why the selection of so many of the A team squad, under Grand Slam captain Stuart Reid, could be the key today.

Blending this side is not as difficult a task as was putting together a brand new Test side to meet Fiji in the first match of the tour.

Of the four who took no part in the A team campaign, only winger Alan Bulloch can be considered a novice at this level. In the front five both Matt Stewart and Stuart Grimes were in the senior Scotland squad throughout the Five Nations' Championship. The latest player to be drawn into the fold, Gordon Simpson, arrived in Scotland earlier this year having played provincial rugby in his native New Zealand.

What the A team demonstrated last season was that they had the composure and the enterprise to play stylishly even when their public would have been satisfied with a win at all costs.

Right though Hastie was to take the pragmatic view, that is exactly what is required to reinstall belief within this tour party that they can enjoy a successful tour.