Scotland have urged World Cup bosses to see sense and push their win-or-bust showdown with Japan out of Typhoon Hagibis' path of destruction.

Scottish Rugby Union chief executive Mark Dodson made his call as he refused to rule out taking legal action to make sure the game goes ahead.

The "explosive" super storm could yet force the cancellation of the Dark Blues' decisive Pool A clash with the hosts on Sunday – knocking Gregor Townsend's team out of the tournament.

Dodson wants the game pushed back 24 hours, claiming World Rugby would be risking the "sporting integrity" of the competition if they stick to their decision that the game must be played on Sunday or not at all.

The Murrayfield boss says he has expert legal opinion which says the tournament organisers do have the right under 'force majeure' measures to reschedule despite World Cup rules clearly stating pool matches may only go ahead on their original date.

Dodson reckons the country's ability to mount speedy clean-up operations justifies World Rugby bending their rules on scheduling.

He said: "Right from the get-go on Wednesday night we said to World Rugby we will play any place, anywhere. We will play behind closed doors, we'll play in full stadiums.

"Our principle concern is for the safety of the general public. This country has a phenomenal track record of getting things back running once they've had major disasters – they are used to them and are probably the best in the world at doing that.

"We're just saying, give them that little bit of time where the sporting integrity of this tournament is not compromised.

"We don't want to get in some sort of legal arm wrestle with World Rugby but we do believe that we are being timed out in this competition – and being timed out is not a comfortable place to be."