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Scotland see off Georgia with second-half surge
By Online Editors
Scotland have beaten Georgia 36-9 in their final World Cup warm-up match at Murrayfield, following up their win in Tbilisi last weekend over the same opposition.
Gregor Townsend had opted to wrap up a number of his key men in cotton wool as he left them out of his squad for World Cup send-off ahead of their tournament opener against Ireland in Yokohama on September 22.
Skipper Stuart McInally, Fraser Brown, John Barclay, Greig Laidlaw, Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg were all spared action before the squad departs for Japan on Monday.
Glasgow's Ryan Wilson skippered the national team for the first time while Jonny Gray returned from a hamstring strain to make his first appearance of the warm-up series.
After Ali Price touched down, Blair Kinghorn dived over for Scotland’s second score after Adam Hastings and Scott Cummings led a charge, with Darcy Graham playing a crucial role in the build-up too.
But Hastings' failure to convert either of the tries meant Scotland’s lead was not as big as it might have been and a trio of Tedo Abzhandadze penalties saw it trimmed back to 10-9 at the interval.
Scotland continued to apply pressure and scored again through Sam Johnson after 50 minutes following some decent spadework by the pack. Scotland completed a 36-9 romp with further tries from man of the match Darcy Graham, George Horne and his brother Peter.
But there was cause for concern late on as lock Ben Toolis was helped off after suffering a worrying head knock and Townsend will now be sweating on his fitness ahead of their World Cup opener with Ireland in little over a fortnight's time.
- Press Association
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Latest Comments
He nailed a forward on this tour (and some more back in the NPC before he left lol)!
I know what you mean and see it too, he will be a late bloomer if he makes it for sure.
Go to commentsSo John, the guys you admire are from my era of the 80's and 90's. This was a time when we had players from the baby boomer era that wanted to be better and a decent coach could make them better ie the ones you mentioned. You have ignored the key ingrediant, the players. For my sins I spent a few years coaching in Subbies around 2007 to 2012 and the players didn't want to train but thought they should be picked. We would start the season with ~30 players and end up mid season with around 10, 8 of which would train.
Young men don't want to play contact sport they just want to watch it. Sadly true but with a few exceptions.
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