The teams once again meet in their opening match of this year's World Cup in England, giving Saturday's Six Nations fixture even more significance.

"There's always niggle in Scotland and Wales games, no matter what sport, whether it's a male or female sport," said former Scotland hooker Brown.

"There's such close proximity both in geography but also where we are as a team.

"We have three home games - Wales, Italy and Ireland - three teams who are close to us in the world rankings, who are close to us in ability and who are also progressing and growing with professionalism growing tournament on tournament.

"It's really healthy for the sport but it's great for us because it means every single time we go into a competition we get to mark ourselves against teams that are right next to us, pushing in terms of professionalism and quality.

"Wales at home is an excellent opportunity for us to go out and start well."

Saturday at Edinburgh's Hive Stadium is a chance to strike a psychological blow before that World Cup opener on 23 August in Salford, but the Scots are focused only on delivering a strong Six Nations showing that would inevitably provide a springboard towards the global tournament this summer.

"We've got a good run of games, a good order of games," said Thomson, who represented GB Sevens at the Paris Olympics last year.

"We've got Wales up first and then away to France. We pushed France close last year [in a 15-5 loss in Edinburgh], but we know that France are a different animal at home.

"As a group we've talked about just focusing on this tournament. We have Wales first up in the Six Nations, Wales first up in the World Cup, but we've done that before.

"We're just looking forward to a good game on Saturday again."