Rugby Scotland will face Australia at the BT Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh on Sunday 7th November. This will be the second of four autumn internationals to be played by Scotland in 2021.
Week 2 will end with Scotland (No. 7) receiving Australia (No. 3) at the BT Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. Last Saturday the Scottish Thistle won a match against Tonga by a final score of 60-14. Before that, they achieved an amazing Six Nations performance where they defeated both England and France.
The Wallabies reached the Autumn Nation Series after a successful Rugby Championship 2021 campaign. Only losing to the All Blacks, Australia won four games in a row and took 2nd place in the final standings.
Scotland v Australia
Date:
Venue: BT Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
Kick-off: 2:15pm
Referee: Romain Poite (France)
TV Coverage: Live on Amazon Prime (UK and ROI)
“I always said to myself in the back of my head I can’t wait for the day to play in front of fans.”
Duhan van der Merwe is looking forward to playing in front of fans for the first time in a Scotland shirt during the @autumnnations. pic.twitter.com/hf3cY9UQET
— Scottish Rugby (@Scotlandteam) November 4, 2021
A lot of new players made their debut for Scotland last week and Jamie Dobie, scrum half for the Glasgow Warriors, did a great job replacing his teammate Ali Price (co-captain of the team). Scoring four tries, including a first-half hat-trick,South African-born Kyle Stern will be a one-to-watch next Sunday.
With only four uncapped players in his squad, the Australian head coach Dave Rennie will be looking to build on a good season. The return of Will Skelton to the team adds some experience and a heavy boost to the forward’s pack. Born in New Zealand, the 6’8’’ and 286-pound second row now plays for Stade Rochelais in France. He hasn’t represented his country since 2016 after joining the English Premiership.
Scotland ran in 10 tries in beating Tonga 60-14 last weekend including four to Kyle Steyn in his first Test start. He became the first Scot to score four tries in a Test at Murrayfield.
The Scotland 23 on the weekend included eight new caps because coach Gregor Townsend could only choose home-based players. This time he has a full squad of England and France based players to choose from. It’s a formidable line-up with the likes of British and Irish Lions Finn Russell, Stuart Hogg, Chris Harris and Duhan van der Merwe available.
“They’ve been building over the last couple of years and in the Six Nations this year there was a lot of belief in the group that they could actually win it which I think is something Scotland hasn’t always really believed.
“They were extremely unlucky not to go undefeated in the Six Nations. They should have beaten Wales. They were in complete control of that game and ended up losing by a point. And they only lost by three points to Ireland. They won all their other games. I think they’re in a pretty good place.”
You can see Gregor Townsend’s stamp on this team. He played 82 times for Scotland and took over as coach in 2017 – that was the last time the Wallabies played Scotland at Murrayfield. A disastrous 53-22 record-breaking loss for Australia.
The style of rugby Scotland play now can be thrilling to watch.
