The future looks very bright for Scotland, who were fourth
in this year’s 6 Nations playing the best rugby one’s seen from then for some
time, and while many will put that down to – and rightly so – the appointment
of Scott Johnson, with Clermont’s Vern Cotter to come into the role after next
season, the future looks bright for the Scots.
Today’s Castle Larger series starts with what should be a
tightly contested game against Samoa, where the two teams are nearly impossible
to split. Scotland’s improvement over the last two seasons reached a high point
when they were able to win here on last year’s summer tour of Australia thanks
to a stoppage time try by Rob Harley, but today they are missing Richie Gray,
Stuart Hogg, Sean Maitland and Ryan Grant thanks to the Lions tour this summer
and a youthful side, while still holding plenty of promise - Full-back Greig
Tonks, centre Alex Dunbar and hooker Pat MacArthur will all make their
international bow, while Tom Heathcote and Greig Laidlaw should form an enterprising
partnership at 9 and 10 – could find victory just a touch too far beyond them.
Samoa don’t have the ‘home’ advantage they did when meeting
last year, so the best plan may be to dutch the 1-5 point winning margins for
both sides instead of taking either side to win outright.
Advice
1 pt Samoa to win by 1-5 points (9/2 general)
1 pt Scotland to win by 1-5 points (5/1 general)
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