Italy v Scotland, 10 June

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ITALY v SCOTLAND
10 June 2017
KO: 20:00 SGT (UTC+08)
National Stadium, Kallang, Singapore

Referee: Paul Williams (New Zealand)
Touch judges: TBC
TMO: TBC

Live on BBC1

A. Head to Head

27 Played 27
8 Won 19
0 Drawn 0
19 Lost 8
455 Points 653

B. Recent Form

18 March 2017
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
29 – 0 to Scotland

27 February 2016
Stadio Olimpico, Rome
20 – 36 to Scotland

29 August 2015
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
48 – 7 to Scotland

22 August 2015
Stadio Olimpico di Torino, Turin
12 – 16 to Scotland

28 February 2015
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
19 – 22 to Italy

22 February 2014
Stadio Olimpico, Rome
20 – 21 to Scotland

C. Teams

ITALY 

E Padovani, A Esposito, M Campagnaro, T Boni, L Sarto, T Allan, E Gori (capt); A Lovotti, L Bigi, S Ferrari, M Fuser, D Budd, F Minto, M Mbanda, R Barbieri.

Replacements: O Gega, F Zani, P Ceccarelli, A Van Schalkwyk, A Steyn, M Violi, C Canna, T Benvenuti.

SCOTLAND

D Taylor, D Hoyland, M Scott, A Dunbar, T Visser, F Russell, A Price; A Dell, R Ford, WP Nel, T Swinson, B Toolis, J Barclay (capt), R Wilson, J Strauss.

Replacements: F Brown, G Reid, Z Fagerson, R Harley, M Bradbury, H Pyrgos, P Horne.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Is the ref making the rule up about subs not allowed to kick?

I think because time was up. Otherwise you could bring on a specialist kicker for the final kick of the game (or half)

Finally a card

They can't take it if it's a substitution but I'm sure blood and HIA changes and reversals are exempt I'm sure

Another outstanding try for Scotland finished by Ford.

Fantastic try. Unbelievable skill level

Ross Ford. Athlete. He's absolutely done now. Give him a rest

WHAT A TRY!!!!

That was an outstanding try.

It's also that awkward moment when you realise Finn Russel has created more tries in 50 minutes than the Lions have in 3 games...

tigertattie wrote:They can't take it if it's a substitution but I'm sure blood and HIA changes and reversals are exempt I'm sure

Time was dead though, so probably no replacements of any sort allowed until beginning of next half

To be fair to the Lions, you can't run the kick for Visser's try or throw the offloads for Ford's second and come off unless you have familiarity for the guys around you.

Russell is looking very good though, in fairness to him.

Edinburgh front row have put in a good shift.

robbo277 wrote:To be fair to the Lions, you can't run the kick for Visser's try or throw the offloads for Ford's second and come off unless you have familiarity for the guys around you.

Russell is looking very good though, in fairness to him.

I get that and I was being antagonistic for the sake of it, but he is offering a genuine spark, something none of the Lions 10s have a reputation for.

He's been electric.

Toolis imperious in the lineout

Try Italy, good break from a turnover when Bradbury dropped a pass

Toolis surely has the 3rd lock position now?

tigertattie wrote:Toolis surely has the 3rd lock position now?

Massive pressure on both grays now too

Hoyland has been impressive too.

Fair play Barclay trying to tell the ref it was nothing - it was stupid though

Barclay is a class act, shouting it's nothing to no avail as the Ref yellow cards Steyn.

Lots of MoM candidates, but I would give it to Toolis who has been very impressive on his first start

Hoyland deserved that, he has played well. Another excellent assist from Super Duncan

Great kick Horne but he hasn't looked overly comfortable at 10 it's got to be said

looks like a rib popper for Taylor

I thought Taylor had done his shoulder there. Just looks winded though

I get that and I was being antagonistic for the sake of it, but he is offering a genuine spark, something none of the Lions 10s have a reputation for.

He's been electric.

Agree with that. I'd have had Ford, but Russell has been class here. Would have liked to have seen one of them go at least.

All over, harder games to come but a pretty good start to the Toonie era!

Shame to lose a try at the end but great result - some fantastic tries

A very good team performance. Top marks to Toolis and to Sideshow Bob at 15.

Mr Chinhook's try had "Made in Glasgow" stamped all over it.

We should have an even better team out next week with hopefully JG and HW coming back in.

I think that Toolis may well start and Swinson on the bench.

I think most of the forwards had a good game.

Strauss though just looks like international rugby is too quick a pace for him.
Ryan Wilson was pretty anonymous

Ford Barclay and particularly toolis had great games

Visser looked slow
Hoyland needs to come looking for more work

Price had a good game
Russell was bright in attack, just needs to concentrate all the time and not switching off as much

Still making progress. Next week will be the yard stick

tigertattie wrote:I think most of the forwards had a good game.

Strauss though just looks like international rugby is too quick a pace for him.
Ryan Wilson was pretty anonymous

Ford Barclay and particularly toolis had great games

Visser looked slow
Hoyland needs to come looking for more work

Price had a good game
Russell was bright in attack, just needs to concentrate all the time and not switching off as much

Still making progress. Next week will be the yard stick

That's a little bit harsh it was unbelievably hard to play in those conditions.

That was the first game in ages for JS, he carried hard and did the softening up. The conditions could hardly have been worse for him. Wilson did the same only for the whole 80 mins

Both wingers looked sharp enough and took their tries well, though Vis could have made more effort to stop the try. I thought Hoyland chased hard all day.

By no means perfect, but pretty good effort for a first run out. They will be better prepared for Australia because of it and the conditions will be a lot easier

Is this part of a one off tournament structure or do Australia, Fiji and Italy all just happen to be playing each other as well?

I might be wrong, but I think in all of Ford's international caps (107) he's scored a massive 10pts, he doubled his points tally today!!

My player ratings:

Dell - 6.5

Solid in the scrum and effective in the loose - looks well at home at this level now

Ford - 7

One of his better games for Scotland of late with some physical carries 2 well taken tries

Nel - 6.5

He looked in good shape (relatively speaking!) And scrumed well.

Swinson - 6.5

Worked hard as always but ran out of steam

Toolis - 8

Imperious in the lineout and his usual work on the loose - MOTM performance

Barclay - 7

Captain fantastic and a classy player - would have had several penalty turnovers with a different ref

Wilson - 6.5

Worked hard as always but not the same class as Hardie or Watson

Strauss - 6

Offered himself up to carry a lot but often didn't get very far.

Price - 6.5

A well taken try but looked to be really struggling with the conditions

Russell - 8

Supreme attacking play with the odd mistake thrown in - usual Russell then!

Visser - 6.5

Can't stop scoring but he was back to his flappy worst when chasing kicks and a poor effort chasing back for the Italian try

Dunbar - 6.5
Solid enough game but was at fault for the Italian intercept try

Scott - 6

A quiet game where the ball just didn't go his way. He'll want to get more involved in future games.

Hoyland - 6.5
Kept himself busy and looked comfortable at this level.

Taylor - 7.5
A class act, even if he was playing fullback like a centre!

Not sure what the attendance was at this game but didn't look like much.

I can't really see the rational for having this in Singapore. Who pays for this? Surely a crowd of > 10000 won't even cover the cost of venue hire etc. Do world rugby pay under the pretence of expanding the game or the Singapore tourism board pay?

Can't imagine BBC paid much for coverage either.

It was less than 9k apparently

On the subject of coverage; apart from Sky is there any way of seeing our match against the criminal element?

RDW_Scotland wrote:It was less than 9k apparently

What a waste. Unless the sru got some sort of payout for this, I have no idea where from, this makes no sense. The game could have got at least 3x the crowd at Murrayfield or I'd imagine double in Italy. Evan playing it in oz you would probably get at least 10k and would avoid extra travel cost/time zone changes etc

jimbopip wrote:On the subject of coverage; apart from Sky is there any way of seeing our match against the criminal element?

Legally?

Legally? The ozzies don't care about legality surely?

This game will be a cracker, Scots look totally different in the 10/12 channel with tonnes of heads up attacking intent and finishing marginal chances, and the 9 was excellent. I think Scotland will be a very competitive side come RWC

Nice to see Barclay finally get used by Scotland, he has been a standout performer for Scarlets for the past few seasons.

LordDowlais wrote:Nice to see Barclay finally get used by Scotland, he has been a standout performer for Scarlets for the past few seasons.

Finally? He has started 14 tests since the World Cup with a further two replacement caps.

LordDowlais wrote:Nice to see Barclay finally get used by Scotland, he has been a standout performer for Scarlets for the past few seasons.

Yeah his time in the wilderness was confusing to Scotland fans too.  There were strong rumours he had a major falling out with the then acting head coach Scott Johnson who supposedly told him 'you'll never play for Scotland again while I'm in charge.'

Don't know how true those rumours are but given he was overlooked regularly for a few years there is probably some truth to them.

It is great to have him back though and I'm so happy for him that he was made captain.