Scotland, amazingly, are riding a two-game win streak against the Wallabies. To put that into proper perspective, Australia had won the previous 16 matches covering a span of 24 years.
SCOTLAND vs AUSTRALIA
Saturday, November 23, 18:00 GMT, Edinburgh
Form-wise, the two teams appear to be headed in opposite directions. Australia made Ireland look ordinary in Dublin en route to a comprehensive victory, while the Scots look dishevelled as they collapsed against the Springboks at Murrayfield. Unfortunately for the Wallabies, yet another battle with the bottle has cost the team several players to suspension, with Tevita Kuridrani already copping a five-week ban for his dangerous tackle on Peter O’Mahony.
Compounding matters is a season-ending hamstring injury to Matt To’omua, among the best players on the tour, meaning a makeshift centre pairing is formed by Mike Harris and Christian Leali’ifano. Both wing incumbents are forced to sit out, with Joe Tomane and Chris Feauai-Sautia taking up shop out wide. Thankfully the starting forwards are unchanged, but Ben Alexander, Ben McCalman, Nick Phipps, and Bernard Foley have been added to the reserves.
The Scots have made five changes to the side that fell flat against South Africa, four of them in the forwads. Ryan Grant returns at loosehead prop, and Grant Gilchrist takes over for Richie Gray at lock. Flankers Alasdair Strokosch and John Barclay have been replaced by Johnnie Beattie and Kelly Brown, with the latter restored to the captaincy instead of Greig Laidlaw. Duncan Weir swaps with Ruaridh Jackson in the only edit to the backline, while abrasive London Irish forward Kieran Low should win his first cap at some point as a replacement.
Normally after such a poor performance from the host side it would be easy to simply chalk this one up for Australia, but after such a disruptive week and the selection of a terribly unimaginative midfield, Scotland might yet be able to keep their mini-streak alive. Let’s not give that hypothesis too much credence, however, as the Scottish centres are hardly game-breakers themselves. This should be a close battle for 60-odd minutes, but Australia will pull away in the final quarter to win by 12 points.
Referee: Jaco Peyper (SARU)
Assistants: Pascal Gauzere (FFR) & Francisco Pastrana (UAR)
TMO: Geoff Warren (RFU)
