Scotland’s browbeaten pack must prepare themselves for another test of their physicality and commitment this weekend, in-coming Scotland hooker Ross Ford has warned.

The Dark Blues take on Italy on Saturday in their second Six Nations clash just a week after they suffered a bruising 38-18 defeat to a powerful England side.

Interim Scotland head coach Scott Johnson laid into his meek forwards after the game at Twickenham, criticising their frail attempts at the breakdown as they won just 55 rucks and mauls, compared to an English tally which surpassed 100.

But Ford – who takes the injured Dougie Hall’s number two jersey – insists those issues must be resolved ahead of the weekend when the burly Azzurri XV, who beat France last week, come to town.

He said: “We won’t get it any easier this weekend. Italy have a brilliant pack so we need to make sure we front up in the areas that England exposed against us.

“We’ve been working in training this week, trying to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

“We need to put in a performance in those areas that allows us to play the way we want to play, on the front foot.”

The frustrations over the Scots’ inadequacies in the rough-and-tumble phases of the game were only made worse by the impressive running display from speedy backs like Stuart Hogg, Sean Maitland and Tim Visser.

Hogg and Maitland both crossed over for tries in London and Ford realises the ability of them to create even more scoring opportunity is dependent on the forward bunch retaining swift possession at the breakdown.

He said: “All three of those guys showed that when they are in space, they are very dangerous.

“The more we can get them in space with the ball, the better for us it will be.

“It’s great to have that choice and to hit them as many times as we can.

“We will try our very best to do that as often as possible on Saturday.”