SCOTLAND COACH GREGOR Townsend made wholesale changes to his team to play Russia in a crucial Pool A match in Shizuoka on Wednesday.
Edinburgh wing Darcy Graham is the only player retained from the starting XV that defeated Samoa 34-0 in Kobe, with all eight players on the bench that day promoted to start.
Scotland need a bonus-point win over Russia to stay in contention for the quarter-finals — and they then have to beat hosts Japan by more than seven points four days later.
Centre Pete Horne, and World Cup debutants in fullback Blair Kinghorn, lock Ben Toolis and hooker George Turner, all get a first run-out in the starting XV, with recent squad addition Henry Pyrgos named on the bench.
“First and foremost we’ve picked a team we believe is capable of defeating an increasingly impressive and combative Russia side, who are looking to finish their pool campaign on a high,” said Townsend.
“A number of our players are getting their first start or Test in this tournament and have been itching to play their part in this World Cup by helping the team deliver a winning performance on Wednesday.”
Glasgow pair George Horne and Adam Hastings link up at half-back, with John Barclay skippering the side from blindside.
“Any successful World Cup campaign is built on a squad effort and those players who didn’t get the opportunity to start against Samoa really helped provide that team with a quality week of preparation,” Townsend said.
“Now it’s their chance to get stuck into our next important game as we enter the final week of our pool matches.”
Scotland will be bidding to notch up a maximum five points from their match against Russia to keep their hopes alive of a place in the quarter-finals.
Then on Sunday against Japan, they need another win while preventing the Brave Blossoms from getting a defensive bonus point for losing by seven points or fewer.
After a disappointing 27-3 defeat by Ireland in their opening match, the Scots went on to beat Samoa 34-0.
Russia coach Lyn Jones has made four changes to the team that went down 35-0 to Ireland, having previously lost to Samoa (34-9) and Japan (30-10).
“I am very comfortable with our team selection,” the Welshman said.
“We are good enough to create a really exciting match. We appreciate where Scotland are in the group, and we know that every player must give everything he has to perform and to compete as best as we can.”
Scotland
Blair Kinghorn
Tommy Seymour
Duncan Taylor
Pete Horne
Darcy Graham
Adam Hastings
George Horne
Ryan Wilson
Fraser Brown
John Barclay (C)
Ben Toolis
Scott Cummings
Zander Fagerson
George Turner
Gordon Reid
Replacements
Stuart McInally
Simon Berghan
Willem Nel
Grant Gilchrist
Magnus Bradbury
Jamie Ritchie
Henry Pyrgos
Chris Harris
Russia
Vasily Artemyev (C)
German Davydov
Vladimir Ostroushko
Dmitry Gerasimov
Vladislav Sozonov
Ramil Gaisin
Dmitry Perov
Nikita Vavilin
Tagir Gadzhiev
Vitaly Zhivatov
Evgeny Elgin
Andrey Ostrikov
Kirill Gotovtsev
Stanislav Selskii
Valery Morozov
Replacements
Sergey Chernyshev
Azamat Bitiev
Vladimir Podrezov
Bogdan Fedotko
Andrey Garbuzov
Sergey Ianiushkin
Anton Sychev
Yury Kushnarev
Murray Kinsella joins Sean Farrell and Gavan Casey from Japan to give his blunt assessment of Ireland’s performance against Russia
