The cross-code star who has Gregor Townsend on high alert as Scotland look to avoid 'disappointing' finale
Scotland will look to finish with a flourish when they conclude their Autumn Nations Series campaign against an improving Australia side at Murrayfield, with Gregor Townsend set to recall his big guns for the game on Sunday.
A largely second string Scottish team proved far too strong for Portugal at the weekend, running in nine tries in the 59-21 win in front of a 60,000-plus crowd at the national stadium as Ben Muncaster, Alex Samuel and Freddy Douglas all made their debuts..
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Hide AdHaving beaten Fiji convincingly in their autumn opener then lost to world champions South Africa, Townsend knows a win over the Wallabies would put a positive slant on the series as the national side looks ahead to the 2025 Six Nations


“I think we’d be disappointed if we didn’t get a win with all the work that’s gone in and what we’ve learned from that South Africa game and the frustrations of not beating them,” said the Scotland coach. “It would be very disappointing if we were to come away with a defeat but we’ll have to play really well to win.”
Australia surprised many observers earlier this month with a highly impressive 42-37 victory over England at Twickenham in which their new cross-code star Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii excelled. The rugby league convert stole the show with a man-of-the-match performance at outside centre but was on the bench for Sunday’s game with Wales in Cardiff.
After a period in the doldrums, things are starting to look up for the Wallabies under the shrewd leadership of Joe Schmidt who took over in January, succeeding Eddie Jones. Although they struggled in the Rugby Championship, winning just one of six fixtures against their southern hemisphere rivals, they did enjoy a Test series win against a touring Wales side in the summer.
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Hide Ad“They’ve improved,” said Townsend. “Just playing in the Rugby Championship, you’re better on the back of that because you’ve got six games against three of the top teams in the world now. Argentina are obviously in the top five and South Africa and New Zealand are in the top two. So getting that experience to play each of those teams twice will make you better.
“Joe Schmidt, who’s a brilliant coach, has spent time with them now and they have some really good players. They’ve always had a big playing base. They may have gone through a little dip but they’ve got all their squad available and they've even been able to make changes on the back of the England game and bring in guys like Will Skelton and Samu Kerevi. It’s going to be a very tough game.
“We know they’re sitting about the same as us in world rankings so we see it as a real challenge.”
Suaalii had not played rugby union for five years before the match at Twickenham but the former Sydney Roosters player quickly found his groove.
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“I thought some of his touches were incredible,” said Townsend. “For your first game of union, it’s a Test match at Twickenham, and you’re able to offload lovely soft touches… He’ll take a lot of confidence from that and I just really know they’ve got a world-class footballer already.”
Townsend will bring back his own skilful practitioners for Sunday’s game after resting the likes of Blair Kinghorn, Finn Russell, Sione Tuipulotu, Huw Jones, Duhan van der Merwe and Ben White for the win over Portugal. It’s hard to envisage too many of the side who faced the Portuguese retaining their place for the Australia match, with the notable exception of Darcy Graham who marked his return from a head injury with a first-half try which drew him level with van der Merwe at the top of the Scotland all-time list. The two Edinburgh wingers now have 29 tries each for their country.
Tom Jordan, impressive again at full-back, is likely to have to be content with a place on the bench as Kinghorn returns.
Up front, Pierre Schoeman, Ewan Ashman, Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings, Grant Gilchrist, Matt Fagerson and Rory Darge are all expected to reclaim their places but there is a vacancy at No 8 created by Jack Dempsey’s shoulder injury. Josh Baylis impressed in the role against the Portuguese but it’s a position in which Matt Fagerson has also played some of his best rugby for Scotland.
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Hide Ad“Matt Ferguson has played really well for us at No 8,” said Townsend. “I think Matt will be recovered after this weekend but I thought Josh did everything that you wanted him to do. He had to adjust in the line-up, he stole a couple of lineouts, brought pace into our defence, carried well.”
He also scored one of Scotland’s nine tries, with the others coming from Graham, Will Hurd, Stafford McDowall, Arron Reed (two), Jamie Bhatti, Jamie Dobie and a penalty try. Adam Hastings converted five and Jordan one but it wasn’t all plain sailing for the Scots who conceded three tries to Luke Begic, Samuel Marques and Raffaele Storti.


The lineout was a problem at times, with Portugal stealing three on the Scots’ throw. The scrum also seemed to struggle after the starting front row of Bhatti, Paddy Harrison and Hurd was replaced.
“I spoke to Peter [de Villiers, Scotland scrum coach] and he wasn’t happy with how they [Portugal] were dropping the scrum under pressure,” said Townsend. “He felt we weren’t getting the rewards for them hinging and then I think there were a couple of scrums where maybe we were tentative, not wanting to give away a penalty for an early engage. But it’s frustrating. Obviously we want to get more out of the scrum than that but I don’t think it was always being refereed the way that we thought it should be.”
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Hide AdScorers: Scotland: Tries: Hurd, McDowall, penalty try, Graham, Bayliss, Bhatti, Reed 2, Dobie. Cons: Hastings 5, Jordan. Portugal: Tries: Begic, Marques, Storti. Cons: Marques 3.
Yellow card: Duarte Torgal (Portugal, 26min)
Scotland: T Jordan; D Graham, R Hutchinson (M Currie 58), S McDowall, A Reed; A Hastings (K Rowe 65), G Horne (J Dobie 58); J Bhatti (R Sutherland 50), P Harrison (J Matthews 65), W Hurd (E Millar Mills 50), A Craig (E Johnson 50), A Samuel (A Craig 68), L Crosbie, B Muncaster (F Douglas 65), J Bayliss.
Portugal: S Bento; R Storti, J Lima, T Appleton, L Martins (M Cardoso Pinto 47); D Cabral (H Aubry 58), S Marques (A Campos 79); D Costa (P Vicente 54), L Begic (A Cunha 54), D Hasse Ferreira (A Prim 54), J Madeira (A Rebelo de Andrade 40), D Torgal, 6 A Cunha, N Martins, F Couto (V Baptista 48).
Referee: Takehito Namekawa (Jpn)
Attendance: 60,983
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