Scotland v Samoa, 11 November

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SCOTLAND V SAMOA
11 November 2017
14:30 GMT (UTC+0)
Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh

Live on BBC One, Connected TV, online & the BBC Sport app & Radio Scotland 810MW

Referee: Nic Berry (Australia)
Touch judges: [tbc]
Television match official: [tbc]

A. Head to Head

10 Played 10
8 Won 1
1 Drawn 1
1 Lost 8
254 Points 155

B. Recent Form

10 October 2015
St James' Park, Newcastle
33 – 36 to Scotland

8 June 2013
Mr Price Kings Park, Durban, South Africa
27 – 17 to Samoa

23 June 2012
Apia Park, Apia
16 – 17 to Scotland

27 November 2010
Pittodire, Aberdeen
19 – 16 to Scotland

20 November 2005
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
18 – 11 to Scotland

4 June 2004
Westpac Stadium, Wellington, New Zealand
3 – 38 to Scotland

18 November 2000
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
31 – 8 to Scotland

C. Teams

SCOTLAND

Stuart Hogg, Tommy Seymour, Huw Jones, Alex Dunbar, Lee Jones, Finn Russell, Ali Price (all Glasgow Warriors); Darryl Marfo, Stuart McInally, WP Nel, Ben Toolis (all Edinburgh), Jonny Gray (Glasgow), Barclay (captain - Scarlets), Hamish Watson (Edinburgh), Ryan Wilson (Glasgow).

Replacements: George Turner, Jamie Bhatti, Zander Fagerson, Tim Swinson (all Glasgow), Cornell Du Preez (Edinburgh), Henry Pyrgos, Peter Horne (both Glasgow), Chris Harris (Newcastle).

SAMOA

Ah See Tuala, Paul Perez, Kieron Fonotia, Reynold Lee-Lo,David Lemi, Tim Nanai Williams, Pele Cowley;Jordan Lay, Manu Leiataua, Donald Brighouse, Josh Tyrell, Chris Vui (capt), Piula Fa'asalele, TJ Ioane, Jack Lam.

Replacements: Motu Matu'u, James Lay, Hisa Sasagi, Fa'atiga Lemalu, Ofisa Treviranus, Mealani Matavao, AJ Alatimu, Alapati Leiua.

RDW_Scotland wrote:So apparently that's the most points we've ever conceded in victory.

NOte quite sure whether to be proud of that or not.

So who is on the bench at TH for the next match? dougies mildly racist uncle?

Berghan has been playing well and may even have deserved a spot in the first place - he'll do a good job

Ta - I can stop panicking now- forgot him

I seriously hope we'll see John Welsh called up - he's a regular for Newcastle and is an experienced international.

If D'Arcy Rae gets called up we're doomed.

Defence has to tighten up next week. I'm amazed we won a test match with such a squishy defence. Can't happen next week or we'll need a hundred to beat the all blacks.

Didn't get to see this game but I don't usually watch Rugby League anyway. But it seems to have been a good game by the standards of that code....

Can we please say goodnight and goodbye to tiny Tim? Again he came on and gave away silly penalties costing us feild position. Yes he did good work t one maul to make a turnover but he is simply a penalty machine and has cost us games in the past and will do again. At least Toolis got a well deserved place in the side and did well

Got to say I don't remember him giving away loads of penalties - ESPN stats say he only gave away one.

And that maul intervention potentially saved us the game!

Mark Palmer in the ST today seems to suggest Johnny Gray would be a better blend with Swinson than Toolis, I have to disagree with that, on general form I think Toolis is actually the first pick at lock ahead of Gray currently.
Thought Marfo played very well, he looked solid enough in the scrum and was obviously good at the breakdown. Nel's injury is very bad luck for him again but Berghan has been playing well for Edinburgh, and is much fitter now, so I think he'll do fine.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Got to say I don't remember him giving away loads of penalties - ESPN stats say he only gave away one.

And that maul intervention potentially saved us the game!

He gave away more than that I thought. One of the Samoan tries he was jogging away from the gap the ball carrier scored thru as it was scored. Sorry - I don't even think he is good enough to play for a pro 14 team let alone Scotland. Every time he comes on he gives away cheap penalties that cost us dear and he is not any good in other areas to make up for it.

Whether Bergahan is fitter than he was isn't really relevant.
Is he a significantly better scrummager than the one who almost ran away from the french front row in Paris last year?
If the answer is no then Jon Welsh should be on the bench at the very least. Fagerson is looking jaded after all the games he has played over the last couple of seasons.  He looks like he needs a bit of bench time to get his mojo back.
If Toonie didn't have such a bad relationship with Welsh then it would be a no brainer to select the Newcastle player, equally at home on either side of the scrum. He is easily the most experienced and dominant scrummager available to the Toonmeister.
However i dont think the Tombola has the spine to bury the hatchet for the sake of the Scotland team. However, I hope Im wrong!

Whilst Berghan had a torrid time in Paris it is worth noting that we were decimated by injuries that game and ended up with a very makeshift pack - I think Swinson played most of the game at number 8. Scrummaging is an 8 man effort and that really wouldn't have helped him.

Berghan has been playing better than Nel this season IMO - his scrummaging has been dominant for Edinburgh. He had a good run of form last season too.

Indeed given Townsend's desire to play club units we may see Berghan starting! New Zealand had the nudge on France in the scrum so we need a strong scrummaging unit.

sensisball wrote:Whether Bergahan is fitter than he was isn't really relevant.
Is he a significantly better scrummager than the one who almost ran away from the french front row in Paris last year?
If the answer is no then Jon Welsh should be on the bench at the very least. Fagerson is looking jaded after all the games he has played over the last couple of seasons.  He looks like he needs a bit of bench time to get his mojo back.
If Toonie didn't have such a bad relationship with Welsh then it would be a no brainer to select the Newcastle player, equally at home on either side of the scrum. He is easily the most experienced and dominant scrummager available to the Toonmeister.
However i dont think the Tombola has the spine to bury the hatchet for the sake of the Scotland team. However, I hope Im wrong!

Is this a fact?

Don't understand why Welsh hasn't been involved since he left Glasgow.

Unfortunately i haven't heard directly from Mr Welsh about the state of his dealings with Mt T.
A friend of his told the wife of a friend of mine that they didn't see eye to eye when he became head coach at Glasgow.  Assuming that Toonie had control over contracts at the time then he would have been the one who made the decision to let Welsh go at the end of his deal. So i do realise my assertions are in Grassy Knoll territory!

Further, last year when Nell was out and Berghan was selected for the 6 N's the forwards coach (Humphreys) said something along the lines of "we all know what Welshy can do,but we think Simon (Berghan) might be something special" By which i think he was alluding to his inability to scrummage effectively for more than 2 scrums at International level before running away from his opponent.(see the latter stages of the French match)
Humphreys has now got the job at Glasgow. So maybe the Humph and Cotter were told they couldn't select Welsh for the 6N's in case he did well and made it harder for the Tombola to drop him. I realise that i  am now in at least Grassy Knoll cubed territory,but i love a good conspiracy theory!

Jim Hamilton gets it spot on - just like Glasgow in the champions cup, if you go at Scotland direct with a lot of physicality you will do well. We have a soft underbelly, particularly in our own 22.

NZ will have definitely noticed this and I'm sure will ruthlessly exploit it!

https://twitter.com/jimhamilton4/status/929757081003024385

The problem is we don't really have massively physical forwards to bring in for our current lot. You could bring in CDP at 8 but IMO he's not dynamic enough to cope with the All Blacks.

I think it was as much organisational as power and also the speed at which Samoa did the pick and gores. But fair point all the same

How did Marfo get on gents? Pleased to see he got on the pitch for his first cap

yappysnap wrote:How did Marfo get on gents? Pleased to see he got on the pitch for his first cap

He did well - strong scrummaging and got 2 turnovers

Important ones at that. The first two tries came from Marfo's turnovers

Where's a NZ match thread when you need one...

Its right beside Scotland's defence.

Tattie Scones RRN wrote:Its right beside Scotland's defence.

Tattie Scones RRN wrote:Its right beside Scotland's defence.

If that's the case we should see it given how porous our defence was!

Yep, that joke was similarly as bad as your original.

Guscott has 3 Scots in his team of the week, Hoggy, Huw Jones and McInally.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/41961575

I haven't seen enough of the other matches to comment, but I'd assume that Watson and Toolis must've been there or thereabouts in their respective positions too. Huw Jones actually had a fairly quiet game by his standards, but made very good work out of the limited time on the ball he did get. 5 tries from 9 appearances is some start to his international career.

Guscott has Navidi at 7 instead of Watson - thats just laughable I thought till I looked at the stats