Scotland ring changes for Georgia
Scotland coach Andy Robinson has made sweeping changes to his starting XV for Wednesday’s World Cup Pool B game against Georgia with only four players retained from the side that beat Romania.
The Scots struggled badly in that opener against the east Europeans before two late tries from Simon Danielli pulled them through a match they had been expected to win easily 34-24.
Prop Allan Jacobsen is the only player who stays in his position in the pack, while Max Evans remains on the wing with brother Sean switching from wing to centre. Kelly Brown moves to No.8 from flank.
All of Scotland’s backs will have played at least one World Cup match by the end of Wednesday’s match and Robinson will have made use of 28 of his 30-man squad in Scotland’s first two matches.
The two players still waiting to be selected are prop Moray Low and hooker Dougie Hall.
“It’s very difficult for the players to play two games in four days,” Robinson said.
“Whilst we’re asking a number of players to do that, [considering] the strength of the squad that we’ve got and the depth of the squad that we’ve got, [we’re] looking at the personnel that we’ve selected to perform against Georgia.
“On Saturday we did some very good things but we also conceded 24 points. If the team wants to be successful, they cannot concede 24 points.
“So we want to limit the number of penalties we give away and we want to get a collective edge in how we defend.
“It’s a cracking side that we’ve selected.”
Robinson pinpointed the Georgian scrum as being the main concern for a Scots pack that was manhandled at times by Romania, hence the choice of five forwards to two backs on the bench.
“There are a number of challenges we’re going to face, especially from Georgia,” he said.
“They want to play at the Six Nations and they see this as an opportunity to put their hand up for that and this is a huge game for them as it’s on the global stage.
“We need to be very physical and be able to smash the Georgians to the floor. We also need to have field position and get field position and look after the ball.”
Veteran goal-kicker Chris Paterson drops down to the bench and if he comes on he will play his 13th World Cup match for his country, only one short of his team’s record of 14 set by Doddie Weir between 1991 and 1999.
Dan Parks and Rory Lawson form a new half-back partnership with Lawson taking over as captain.
“The selection is based on the four day turn-around from Saturday’s match and is about us continuing our winning start to the tournament with a victory over Georgia. It should not be interpreted as a reflection on our performance against Romania.
“We spoke before the tournament about the need to utilise our squad over these opening two games given the proximity of the fixtures and that is what we have done.
“Of course we will look for considerable improvement on our display at the weekend, particularly in our discipline at the breakdown, an area where we have been consistently good in recent times. We simply must not give away cheap three points.”
Scotland: 15 Rory Lamont, 14 Max Evans, 13 Nick De Luca, 12 Graeme Morrison, 11 Sean Lamont, 10 Dan Parks, 9 Rory Lawson (captain), 8 Kelly Brown, 7 Ross Rennie, 6 Ally Strokosch, 5 Jim Hamilton, 4 Nathan Hines, 3 Euan Murray, 2 Scott Lawson, 1 Allan Jacobsen.
Replacements: 16 Ross Ford, 17 Geoff Cross, 18 Alasdair Dickinson, 19 Richie Gray, 20 Richie Vernon, 21 Chris Cusiter, 22 Chris Paterson.
Date: Wednesday, September 14
Venue: Rugby Park, Invercargill
Kick-off: 19.30 (07.30 GMT)
Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)
Assistant referees: Simon McDowell (Ireland), Tim Hayes (Wales)
TMO: Shaun Veldsman (South Africa)
