Scotland trounce Canada

REPORT: Hooker George Turner scored a hat-trick as Scotland opened their June tour with a comfortable 48-10 victory over Canada in Edmonton on Saturday.

Turner became the first Scot to score an international hat-trick in more than a decade as the tourists’ power and fitness overwhelmed the hosts at the Commonwealth Stadium.

An encouraging opener also saw Gregor Townsend hand a second half debut to Adam Hastings, son of legendary former Scotland and British Lions captain Gavin Hastings.

Scotland took the lead in the opening exchanges, scrumhalf Sam Hidalgo-Clyne slotting a straightforward penalty in front of the posts after Canada infringed at the breakdown.

Scotland’s early dominance soon led to a try in the ninth minute, inside centre James Lang finding Byron McGuigan with a crisp pass for the left wing to dot down in the corner for 8-0.

Hidalgo-Clyne missed the chance to add to his tally, sending the conversion attempt wide.

A rare good spell for Canada soon afterwards ended with a penalty for Shane O’Leary, the Canadian flyhalf opening the scoring for the hosts after the Scots infringed near their own 22.

But Canada were soon rocking after a controversial flashpoint in the 18th minute, when prop Noah Barker was sent to the sinbin for a blatant off the ball incident that took out Scottish loosehead Allan Dell.

Scotland’s attempts to make their advantage count however were frustrated by some desperate Canadian defence, and Scotland flyhalf Ruaridh Jackson had a try disallowed when he was deemed not to have grounded.

Jackson made no mistake though six minutes from half-time, bagging Scotland’s second try as Canada’s resistance finally broke, Hidalgo-Clyne adding the two points to make it 15-3 at half-time.

Scotland were again quick to get into their groove after the restart, with Turner bagging his first of the night after a well-executed rolling maul from a line-out. Hidalgo-Clyne’s conversion put the Scots 19 points clear at 22-3.

Yet Canada hit back quickly after Jackson was adjudged to have made a deliberate knock-on to thwart a score for the hosts’ centre Ben LeSage, earning the Canadians a penalty try for 22-10.

With Canada beginning to tire rapidly, Scotland began punching through the Canadian defence at will.

Blair Kinghorn was denied by a desperate DTH van der Merwe tackle, but soon after Magnus Bradbury powered through weak tackling to score a try converted by Kinghorn for 29-10.

From there on, it became a question of how many more Scotland would score.

Turner crossed for his second of the game from a rolling maul and then completed his hat-trick from another drive inside the final 10 minutes.

The scorers:

For Canada:
Try: Penalty try
Pen: O’Leary

For Scotland:
Tries: McGuigan, Jackson, Turner 3, Bradbury, Carmichael
Cons: Hidalgo-Clyne 2, Kinghorn 3
Pen: Hidalgo-Clyne

Teams:

Canada: 15 Pat Parfrey, 14 Jeff Hassler, 13 Ben LeSage, 12 Nick Blevins, 11 DTH van der Merwe (co-captain), 10 Shane O’Leary, 9 Phil Mack (co-captain), 8 Luke Campbell, 7 Matt Heaton, 6 Lucas Rumball, 5 Evan Olmstead, 4 Paul Ciulini, 3 Jake Ilnicki, 2 Ray Barkwill, 1 Noah Barker.
Replacements: 16 Eric Howard, 17 Djustice Sears-Duru, 18 Cole Keith, 19 Conor Keys, 20 Dustin Dobravsky, 21 Andrew Ferguson, 22 Cole Davis, 23 Theo Sauder.

Scotland: 15 Blair Kinghorn, 14 Lee Jones, 13 Chris Harris, 12 James Lang, 11 Byron McGuigan, 10 Ruaridh Jackson, 9 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 8 David Denton, 7 Jamie Ritchie, 6 Magnus Bradbury, 5 Grant Gilchrist (captain), 4 Ben Toolis, 3 Simon Berghan, 2 Fraser Brown, 1 Allan Dell.
Replacements: 16 George Turner, 17 Jamie Bhatti, 18 Murray McCallum, 19 Lewis Carmichael, 20 Luke Hamilton, 21 Ali Price, 22 Adam Hastings, 23 Mark Bennett.

Referee: Shuhei Kubo (Japan)
Assistant referees: George Clancy (Ireland), Derek Summers (USA)
TMO: Graham Hughes (England)

Agence France-Presse