Scotland v Australia: Autumn Nations Series rugby union – live | Autumn Nations Series




Key events

8 mins. A promising lineout position for the Wallabies is ruined by a fabulous bit of getting amongst it work by Darcy Graham at the ruck to win the ball back. The penalty is cleared to touch, but Ewan Ashman destroys the good work with a wonky lineout throw.

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“Gervase Greene here in (very) early-morning Sydney, finding myself in the weird situation of hoping a rampant Wallabies can offset the national shame of our aged and hapless cricket team being trounced in the Perth Test. You’ll appreciate this is not a sentence we have had cause to utter in several decades…”

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4 mins. A big clearing kick from Kinghorn forces Wright to find touch in his own half. The Scotland lineout is good, but as Russell looks to get the attack going the ball is spilled forward by Jones in midfield.

Nick Mullins has already done a couple of Harry Potter book references in the first four minutes. I did warn you.

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2 mins. Australia win the resulting scrum and start fizzing the ball away from the rucks and through the phases in the Scottish half. The structure is good and very pacy, forcing Scotland to scramble, which they do a good enough job of to force Ikitau to kick the ball away.

Australia's flanker Valetini is tackled. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images
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Kick Off!

Lolesio kicks the ball no further than 5 metres forward, then Scotland knock it on. A truly diabolical start.

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The teams are on the way out of the tunnel, Scotland led by Matt Fagerson on the occasion of this fiftieth cap.

The conditions are absolutely superb.

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Mark Williams emails:

“I’m in the jungle in Sri Lanka waiting for the termites to bugger off so that I can sit outside and enjoy the sound of the rain and cooling breeze!”

None of that breeze needed here, Mark, as I’m sure you can appreciate.

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I’ll tell you what else you can do while waiting for kick off after you’ve sent me an email, you can have a read of some good stuff.

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I’m excited about this game, are you? Tell me by emailing me, what else are you gonna do while you wait for kick off?

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Teams

Gregor Townsend has addressed the the loss of Jack Dempsey through injury by bringing Jamie Ritchie in for now rare start in the back row, while Scott Cummings returns to lock after his one-match ban. The dazzling back three of Kinghorn, Graham and Van Der Merwe are reunited as Tom Jordan moves to the bench.

Joe Schmidt hands out another tour debut, this time to Harry Potter the former Leicester now Western Force winger, who will bring plenty of opportunities for lazy commentators to make endless hideously tortured magic related references to his play.

Impressive captain Harry Wilson returns to the starting XV, as does the so far incredible Joseph-Akuso Suaalii.

Scotland: 15 Blair Kinghorn, 14 Darcy Graham, 13 Huw Jones, 12 Sione Tuipulotu (captain), 11 Duhan van der Merwe, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Ben White, 8 Matt Fagerson, 7 Rory Darge, 6 Jamie Ritchie, 5 Scott Cummings, 4 Grant Gilchrist, 3 Zander Fagerson, 2 Ewan Ashman, 1 Pierre Schoeman.
Replacements: 16 Dylan Richardson, 17 Rory Sutherland, 18 Will Hurd, 19 Alex Craig, 20 Josh Bayliss, 21 George Horne, 22 Tom Jordan, 23 Kyle Rowe.

Australia: 15 Tom Wright, 14 Andrew Kellaway, 13 Joseph-Akuso Suaalii, 12 Len Ikitau, 11 Harry Potter, 10 Noah Lolesio, 9 Jake Gordon, 8 Harry Wilson (captain), 7 Carlo Tizzano, 6 Rob Valetini, 5 Will Skelton, 4 Jeremy Williams, 3 Allan Alaalatoa, 2 Matt Faessler, 1 Angus Bell
Replacements: 16 Brandon Paenga-Amosa, 17 Isaac Kailea, 18 Zane Nonggorr, 19 Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, 20 Langi Gleeson, 21 Tate McDermott, 22 Ben Donaldson, 23 Max Jorgensen

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Preamble

Welcome to Murrayfield for what could be a day of surprises if the unseasonably mild forecast for today’s game is anything to go by.

Scotland disembark their bus in the midst of an odd run of Autumn matches. Handy wins vs teams they should win handily against and a fitfully sparky but ultimately losing performance in the face of the Springboks could have made it tricky to determine where they are as a team. But this is Gregor Townsend’s Scotland so it’s really more of the same for the team he’s built – they are a squad that plays occasional great games, rather than great players of the game.

This is why today, one off test it may be, is so important for the home side. They face an Australia team developing under Joe Schmidt to be a match for the Scots on the mercurial scale, while also collecting an impressive haul of wins on their end of season tour. A win today that keeps the newly rampaging green and gold at bay would reassert Scotland’s position as the best of what isn’t South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland or France and unlike his opposite number, Townsend cannot point to a developing team and gameplan while “taking the learnings”. There is no excuse for losing today; he and the fans know it.

Foreboding aside, this should be a cracker. These are two teams that love a run, offload and plenty other forms of joy/fury generating play. Expect a surprising amount of fun for a Sunday in November.

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Posted: 2024-11-24 14:52:01

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