Samoa v Scotland: Teams, Build Up & Live Match Thread

[AsLongAsBut100ofUs]

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Can Scotland do the unthinkable and make it 3 from 3 down under? Here's when to watch:

Saturday 23rd June, 2012 15:30 WST, 03:30 BST
Friday 22nd June 22:30 EST ()
Apia Park, Apia - capital of Samoa
Capacity: 15,000
Current forecast for Saturday: Sunny, 22C/72F, 20mph winds

Andy Robinson keeps the 15 largely unchanged, with one forced and two unforced changes. Richie Vernon comes in for John Barclay who has left to arrange his wedding. Chris Cusiter has been 'rewarded' by Andy Robinson with his first start on tour at the expense of Mike Blair, who is likely to now start on the bench. Sean Lamont comes in to directly replace Max Evans at 14, preferred for his physicality.

**Scotland bench and Samoa squad to be updated here later in the week.**

Scotland Squad:

1 Ryan Grant (Glasgow Warriors) 2 caps
2 Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby) 60 caps, 2 tries, 10 points CAPTAIN
3 Euan Murray (Newcastle Falcons) 46 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
4 Richie Gray (Sale Sharks) 23 caps, 1 try, 5 points
5 Alastair Kellock (Glasgow Warriors) 43 caps, 1 try, 5 points
6 Alasdair Strokosch (Perpignan) 27 caps, 1 try, 5 points
7 Ross Rennie (Edinburgh Rugby) 18 caps
8 Richie Vernon (Sale Sharks) 19 caps

9 Chris Cusiter (Glasgow Warriors) 61 caps, 3 tries, 15 points
10 Greig Laidlaw (Edinburgh Rugby) 9 caps, 2 tries, 6 conversions, 14 penalties, 64 points
11 Tim Visser (Edinburgh Rugby) 1 cap, 2 tries, 10 points
12 Matt Scott (Edinburgh Rugby) 3 caps
13 Nick De Luca (Edinburgh Rugby) 35 caps, 1 try, 5 points
14 Sean Lamont (Glasgow Warriors) 67 caps, 8 tries, 40 points
15 Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors) 6 caps, 1 try, 5 points

Replacements : S Lawson (London Irish), G Cross (Edinburgh), T Ryder (Glasgow), R Harley (Glasgow), M Blair (Brive), D Weir (Glasgow), M Evans (Castres)

Samoa team 15 Fa’atoina Autagavai (Vailoa); 14 Paul Perez (Vaimoso), 13 Fautua Otto (Bristol), 12 Paul Williams (Stade Francais), 11 David Lemi (Glasgow Warriors) CAPTAIN; 10 Tusi Pisi (Hurricanes), 9 Kahn Fotuali’I (Ospreys);

1 Sakaria Taulafo (Wasps), 2 Ti’i Paulo (Clermont-Auvergne), 3 Census Johnston (Stade Toulouse), 4 Fa’atiga Lemalu (Papatoetoe), 5 Daniel Crichton (Counties Manukau), 6 Ben Masoe (Papatoetoe), 7 Maurie Fa’asavalu (Harlequins), 8 Kane Thompson (Waikato Chiefs)

Subs: 16 Wayne Ole Avei (Bordeaux Begles), 17 Logovi’i Mulipola (Leicester Tigers), 18 Joe Tekori (Castres), 19 Afa Aioni (Marist), 20 Jeremy Sua (Tasman), 21 Ki Anufe (Marist), 22 Lolo Lui (Moata’a)

Who's up for this one, then?!

[RDW]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mowgli]

if you had been wales of course you would have given them the ball and bent over

[grannyfromross]

No side, well done Scotland - Making a habit of this last minute stuff!!

[Alba gu brath]

Good patience in the end where we've lacked in the past, but that was still a pretty poor overall display. Credit to Samoa though, they played well and that was a pretty entertaining game

[Biltong]

Congrats Scotland, obviously didn't see it, but well done.

Successful summer tour 3-0.

[RDW]

Well that was bloody lucky! Poor stuff from Scotland but don't care - we've won 3 from 3!!!!

Going back to bed - cheers for the company guys

[grannyfromross]

My missus is on the day shift in 20 mins, wonder if she will make me breakfast!!

[Alba gu brath]

In 20 mins? Maybe some toast...

[GLove39]

Hooray for Harley great way to mark your début, and about time this Scottish side had a red head in it!

[Scot Abroad]

That'll have been worth the wait for him

[Alba gu brath]

And for their efforts to get this game online for us, big thanks to Samoa.

[luvtotup]

And for their efforts to get this game online for us, big thanks to Samoa.

+1

[allyt2k]

glad to get the win, always new samoa would be the toughest team on tour.
vernon was anonymous, rennie and stroker where putting in a shift.
harley great debut made an impact as soon as he came on securing good ball at the ruck and scoring a try.
ansbro not his best game he aint a centre, get him back on the wing.
hogg not the best first half but played well the 2nd half.
great game from scott made some good breaks.
not much to do for the wings as it was a tight pitch.

somoa played well good defence and pisi ran that team like a true pro.

[allyt2k]

well done samoa for getting the game online good picture and audio

[RDW]

Well I've not had as much sleep as I'd hoped after the game, but definitely worth getting up at 3.30am again!

First of all, I though Samoa were fantastic. They were a really good team and were better than us at restarts and the lineout (which is surprising considering our significant height advantage). The deserved to win, but am quite happy that they didn't!

Scotland were pretty poor, I'd say worse than last week. Whenever we got the ball we lost it pretty quickly, whether through poor decision making, missed lineouts or lack of concentration at the scrum.

Still, what a win and a significant 3 from 3 which should be lauded.

Plus points for me:

-Our scrum is a force to be reckoned with again

-We have Richie Gray

-Rennie was outstanding again - top openside in the NH IMO without a doubt

-Matt Scott had his best game in a Scotland shirt - his first superb break led to our first try

-We have Visser (but he was very quiet yesterday)

-We have scored tries

-We can grind out wins again

Negative points

-our restarts are still crap

-are lineout could be better

-our tries arguably wouldn't have been scored against better organised defence

-we still don't know what to do with the ball

-we still cough possesion up too easily


But at the end of the day that's 3 from 3 - a massive achievement and the guys deserve a good holiday!

[RDW]

BTW the wholw game is on sru.org.uk

[Dorothy_Mantooth]

Great set of results. Think the tour shows we are the best of the rest, but we are still some way from winning regularly against the top 8.

Main thing is though that we are improving and crucially in areas which have really held us back for years.

[KickAndChase]

Sounds great lads - unfortunately I was out with a lovely lass over here in the U.S. and despite her being very perturbed when I demanded to see the score at her place as we got back, I was ecstatic when I saw that we had won by 1 point in the last minute.

The sign of a good team is a team that wins even though they played bad. This is the reverse of the Scotland of old.

Have we turned a corner? Our matches against South Africa and Tonga will definitely make it much clearer. We need to keep this winning streak (NZ aside - sorry that I'm writing that off) going as much as possible.

It sounds like we were positively awful ... something we need to fix. But ... 3 from 3!!! ya dancer, what a series!

[RuggerRadge2611]

Aye the series has been something of a success, especially when we compare it to our Celtic brethren who wereeither close with no cigar or comprehensively hosed.

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