Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend has rung the changes for his team as he named his lineup to face the USA on Saturday at 8 PM CT at the BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston.
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Saturday, June 16 | 8 PM CDT
Glasgow Warriors fullback Stuart Hogg, certainly one of the very best at his position in the world, will captain the team, which featured 12 changes from the squad that beat Canada 48-10 this past Saturday.
Glasgow flanker Matt Fagerson and another Warriors player, scrumhalf George Horne, will make their Scotland debuts against the Eagles.
WATCH | It may be 34° here in Houston, but the Scotland team are out and training for the match with @USARugby this weekend #AsOne pic.twitter.com/hh4aReltnz
— Scottish Rugby (@Scotlandteam) June 12, 2018
It's no surprise to see so many Warriors join the lineup, as Townsend was waiting for those players to be able to get a bit more rest.
“We always planned to play as much of the squad as possible on this tour, and we also deliberately picked more Edinburgh players in the first game because their season finished earlier," Townsend said. “Now we welcome most of the Glasgow Warriors contingent into the team. On top of that there are seven players making their first starts for the country, which is really exciting, and we are looking forward to them going out and grabbing this opportunity."
Townsend said the Eagles are not a team to be overlooked, pointing out that they have won their last six games and put 60 points on two World Cup-bound opponents (Uruguay and Russia).
“You can see in the way they attack and defend that they are well coached, added to which there are some exceptional individuals that offer running threats throughout their side, so this will be a real test for us on Saturday,” Townsend said.
The USA and Scotland have played each other six times (although one matchup featured a "ScotlandXV" squad but the USA awarded caps for that game). Scotland has won all six, including a 39-16 victory in the 2015 Rugby World Cup in which the USA was leading at halftime.
The Eagles and Scotland have met in Houston before, a 24-6 victory for the Scots in 2014 and a game where the USA scrum struggled to gain a foothold. Only five USA players who played in that game might play Saturday. Only two Scotland players—Hogg and substitute Grant Gilchrist—were in that 2014 game.
Scotland Lineup | |||
| Pos | Player | Club | Caps |
| 1 | Jamie Bhatti | Glasgow Warriors | 9 |
| 2 | George Turner | Glasgow Warriors | 3 |
| 3 | Zander Ferguson | Glasgow Warriors | 16 |
| 4 | Lewis Carmichael | Edinburgh | 1 |
| 5 | Ben Tools | Edinburgh | 10 |
| 6 | Tim Swinson | Glasgow Warriors | 36 |
| 7 | Luke Hamilton | Unattached | 2 |
| 8 | Matt Fagerson | Glasgow Warriors | 0 |
| 9 | George Horne | Glasgow Warriors | 0 |
| 10 | Adam Hastings | Glasgow Warriors | 1 |
| 11 | Byron McGuigan | Sale Sharks | 4 |
| 12 | Pete Horne | Glasgow Warriors | 33 |
| 13 | Nick Grigg | Glasgow Warriors | 4 |
| 14 | Blair Kinghorn | Edinburgh | 3 |
| 15 | Stuart Hogg | Glasgow Warriors | 60 |
| Reserves | |||
| 16 | Fraser Brown | Glasgow Warriors | 32 |
| 17 | Allan Dell | Edinburgh | 11 |
| 18 | Murray McCallum | Edinburgh | 2 |
| 19 | Grant Gilchrist | Edinburgh | 23 |
| 20 | David Denton | Leicester Tigers | 40 |
| 21 | Sam Hidalgo-Clyne | Scarlets | 10 |
| 22 | Mark Bennett | Edinburgh | 21 |
| 23 | Dougie Fife | Edinburgh | 6 |
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