Scotland v Tonga, 22 November

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Scotland v Tonga

Date: Saturday, November 22
Venue: Rugby Park, Kilmarnock
Kickoff: 14:30 local (GMT)
Referee: JP Doyle (Ingerlund)
Assistant Referees: ?
TMO: Gareth Simmonds ?

Autumn tests so far

Scotland 41 - Argentina 31
Scotland 16 - New Zealand 24

Tonga 40 - USA 12
Georgia 9 - Tonga 23

Teams

Scotland

15 Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors); 26 caps
14 Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors); 12 caps
13 Sean Lamont (Glasgow Warriors); 90 caps
12 Alex Dunbar (Glasgow Warriors); 3 tries
11 Tim Visser (Edinburgh Rugby); 14 caps

10 Finn Russell (Glasgow Warriors); 4 caps
9 Greig Laidlaw CAPTAIN (Gloucester); 33 caps

1 Alasdair Dickinson (Edinburgh Rugby); 38 caps
2 Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby); 79 caps
3 Geoff Cross (London Irish); 34 caps
4 Richie Gray (Castres); 41 caps
5 Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors); 7 caps
6 Rob Harley (Glasgow Warriors); 9 caps
7 Blair Cowan (London Irish); 5 caps
8 Johnnie Beattie (Castres); 33 caps

16 Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors); 2caps
17 Gordon Reid (Glasgow Warriors); 5 caps
18 Ryan Grant (Glasgow Warriors); 18 caps
19 Kieran Low (London Irish); 4 caps
20 Alasdair Strokosch (Perpignan); 41 caps
21 Chris Cusiter (Sale Sharks); 69 caps
22 Duncan Weir (Glasgow Warriors); 17 caps
23 Duncan Taylor (Saracens); 11 caps

Tonga  


[TBC]

25-12 now

Would like to see Taylor get a chance at 13 for final quarter.

RDW_Scotland wrote:

The Saint wrote:Where's this Cowan guy from? He's not Scottish, is he...

Kiwi, Scottish mum

Good player though, a Scottish team should try and nab him.

Soooooooo much better this half

The Saint wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:

The Saint wrote:Where's this Cowan guy from? He's not Scottish, is he...

Kiwi, Scottish mum

Good player though, a Scottish team should try and nab him.

We'd love him at Edinburgh or Glasgow

Ford or Cowan for motm for me

I'd go for Cowan motm

Wtf. I just saw visser tackle a Tongan

The Saint wrote:Where's this Cowan guy from? He's not Scottish, is he...

Mum from Scotland, Dad from the Cook Islands and born in New Zealand.
He's proud of his Scottish heritage too.

tigertattie wrote:Wtf. I just saw visser tackle a Tongan

Poor first half, excellent 2nd half.

Ford, Cross, Cowan, Beattie excellent

So for those of us who happen to be stuck in a pub not showing the game (er, for instance), can any of you erudite fellows (or Jimbo) surmise how we have played?

cotter looked chuffed at the end.

5 tries none conceded

37-12 in the end?

George Carlin wrote:37-12 in the end?

alive555 wrote:cotter looked chuffed at the end.

5 tries none conceded

Pretty good score then. Wish a few Wales players would use that sort of nous when playing these guys. Saying that, I've been very impressed by the skills and execution (though a little bit bad at times) of these islander teams.

Can't believe how much our line out has improved, and how bad the Tonga line out was. We made hay there. Ross Ford is a new player under this regime.

I'm overall pretty pleased. Sloppy first half but good ambition to keep going for the corners. Nice to see Scotland going for and getting tries, even if Tonga were a tad accommodating.

Good AI series overall. Lots of positives.

Summary for George "I'm not drunk yet" Carlin

First half we were quite poor. Trying to do new things. No flow in the game. Too many penalties given away, especially not rolling away in the tackle.
Second half much better. Went back to one up pick and go forwards taking the ball in rugby.
Cowan, ford, Harley all immense.
Russell had a decent game. When he has time on the ball he is great. If he's being rushed he gets in w bit of a flap. Gets himself out of difficult areas but is then isolated. Needs more protection from his forwards.
Laidlaw had a snappy service game.
Lineout was great.
Dunbar was ok
Lamont was unspectacular

First half bloody awful ! Actually thought here we go again.....but>

Second very good !

Lineout very very good. About 5 stolen in 2nd half
Driving Maul very good
Scrum 1st half bit ropey second v dominant
Cowan MOM . looks like he has nailed his place
Defence Excellent - no tries conceded
Kicking good
We didnt leave many points out there. Slightly flattering score
Overall the forwards won the game

Scoring tries and winning our own line-outs, ahhhh its a breath of fresh air so it is

tigertattie wrote:Summary for George "I'm not drunk yet" Carlin

First half we were quite poor. Trying to do new things. No flow in the game. Too many penalties given away, especially not rolling away in the tackle.
Second half much better. Went back to one up pick and go forwards taking the ball in rugby.
Cowan, ford, Harley all immense.
Russell had a decent game. When he has time on the ball he is great. If he's being rushed he gets in w bit of a flap. Gets himself out of difficult areas but is then isolated. Needs more protection from his forwards.
Laidlaw had a snappy service game.
Lineout was great.
Dunbar was ok
Lamont was unspectacular

You da man, Tattie. I always said so.

alive555 wrote:First half bloody awful ! Actually thought here we go again.....but>

Second very good !

Lineout very very good. About 5 stolen in 2nd half
Driving Maul very good
Scrum 1st half bit ropey second v dominant
Cowan MOM . looks like he has nailed his place
Defence Excellent - no tries conceded
Kicking good
We didnt leave many points out there. Slightly flattering score
Overall the forwards won the game

Good work feller.

I liked the way we knuckled down in the second half and squeezed the life out of them. They are not a bad side and never looked like scoring a try against us, all their points came from our silly penalties in the first half, but we went in at half time, re-adjusted and ended up winning very well. Tonga looked very demoralised by the end of the game, they were expecting it to be a lot closer than that.

Plenty of stand out performances out there. As well as the obvious ones I will pick out Geoff Cross, who I have been critical of at times. He had a very decent game in the tight and loose, the whole front row and pack played really well in fact.

Its been a pretty good autumn series really. That was better than we could dared have hoped for, 2 good wins and a decent performance against the blacks. Looking forward to the 6N now!

Ickle Jonny outstanding stats again. 11 carries, 12 tackles ( one missed) 7 clean lineouts and two lineout steals

Jonny had a poor first half I think, giving away a few stupid penalties.

He was certainly at the forefront of the pack dominance in the 2nd half granted, and has run a near flawless lineout these AIs.

Only one lost all 3 games?

Ross ford was 2nd i the tackle count with 11 made and zero missed.

Someone else running the lineout has just let the man concentrate on his own game. Throwing has been great. He's making the tackles. He's beating defenders.

I've launched critisisim at the guy but I'm pleased to say he's really getting back to his old form

Just listened to the interviews and the comments from Cotter about the 'soul of the team'. Watching the highlights back and the way players are congratulating each other after every tackle, assist, try and scrum is totally different to 12 months ago. They really do look like a team.

If they can keep this energy going, sure we'll never win every game, but we could have a very special team on our hands going into England 2015 (and even Japan 2019).

Are there any highlights up for this game?

George Carlin wrote:Are there any highlights up for this game?

Ignore me: