Scotland to play Easter Road friendly against Australia

SCOTLAND will play Australia on 15 August in Edinburgh in their final friendly match ahead of the World Cup qualifiers in September and October.

The game – which will allow Craig Levein to put the final touches to his preparations for the key fixtures ahead – will be played at Easter Road before the team return to the national stadium for the first double header of the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign, against Serbia on 8 September and Macedonia three days later.

The last home Scotland international to be taken away from Hampden was the friendly against the Faroe Islands in Aberdeen last season.

The Australia match will be the fifth time a Scotland fixture has been played at Hibernian’s ground. In 1998 Scotland drew 1-1 with Finland, and they defeated Canada 3-1 in 2002. Two years later they also got the better of Trinidad and Tobago, winning 4-1.

The only defeat at the Leith ground came in November 2002 when the Scots, under the caretaker management of Tommy Burns, lost 4-1 to Sweden.

The match in August will be the fifth time Scotland have met Australia in a full international. The last occasion was a friendly at Hampden in November 2000 which the visitors won 2-0, exacting revenge for Scotland’s 1-0 win at the same venue four years earlier.

The nations also contested a two-legged World Cup play-off in 1985, Scotland winning 2-0 at Hampden and drawing 0-0 in Melbourne.