Australia may be favourites to win tomorrow’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final and possibly the William Webb Ellis Trophy itself, but Scotland can still have their measure, believes Vern Cotter.
“Every team has its strengths, but in every team there are weaknesses that can be exploited,” said the head coach as he named four changes from the team that edged Samoa at Newcastle last week to reach the last eight.
Two of them are enforced due to the suspensions of Ross Ford and Jonny Gray, and for all the bold talk out of the camp this week the Scots didn’t even challenge either players’ right to play on Sunday.
At lunchtime yesterday the appeals hadn’t even been officially lodged, and if either are to play in the tournament again it will definitely require an upset victory over the Wallabies. Fraser Brown and Tim Swinson will replace the “Newcastle Two”, as anticipated.
A third change is also enforced, Matt Scott dropping out just yesterday morning having not trained all week with a back injury. Peter Horne comes in to partner Mark Bennett, a pairing that was tried in the 48-7 warm-up victory over Italy at Murrayfield.
That was the biggest points total Scotland have accumulated in eight years, but the midfield pair didn’t gel particularly well, and they look undersized against Australia’s first choice pairing of Matt Giteau and Tevita Kuridrani.
A fourth change is tactical, with Ryan Wilson out of the matchday squad altogether, and Blair Cowan recalled in a clear attempt to match Australia’s “Pooper” open-side duo of David Pocock and Michael Hooper.
Cowan played at six in the opening warm-up against Ireland, scoring a try, although he has not played in the same team as John Hardie, who was originally selected ahead of him before Grant Gilchrist’s injury a week into the tournament resulted in a recall.
As you’d expect from the stoic Cotter, there’s been no raging against injustice. Instead, they’ll just get on with it.
“We don’t get involved in politics, that’s for Mark (Dodson, the SRU chief executive) to deal with,” was the head coach’s only comment on the suspensions. “When it became clear that they’d be banned, we just prepared for the game as best we could.”
They’d prepared with combinations throughout the two months of pre-season and were confident that Swinson and Brown would slot in relatively seamlessly.
Scotland are under no illusions about the task ahead that has Scotland classed as rank underdogs, 8-1 in a two-horse race. But they still think it can be done.
“It’s a challenge, against one of the best sides in the world and the one who has played the best of any of the teams during this tournament,” he said. “But we think if we play to our strengths, we definitely have a chance.
“We’ve got a passionate group who will work hard, get themselves off the deck and go again,” he said. “If we make chances and take every one of them we will be in the game.
“We’re aware that even the slightest lapse in concentration will be fatal, and we know that they’re a team that finish games well, they’ve pulled away from good teams in the final few minutes of many games.”
But Scotland would concentrate on their own game, covering up the lapses against Samoa.
“We’ve practised one or two restarts this week,” he joked about an area that was a liability against the Islanders. “But we have to thank them in a way, they flagged up an area where we were vulnerable and we’ve done some work to correct that.
“I don’t doubt Australia will have some surprises for us as well, and they’ll certainly have their big moments in the game at some point. But we feel we’ve picked a team that will stop their momentum before it builds.”
Cowan certainly helps fill the tackle deficit of Jonny Gray’s absence, and he and Hardie may well approach a tackle count of 40 between them.
Swinson will give everything with his usual aggression, and Brown is certainly a more visible attacking weapon and effective ball-carrier than Ford. But Scotland have lost two of their most influential players and already had a deficit to make up in most people’s minds.
Passion alone will not be enough. The Scots need to play smart and clinical something they’ve done only intermittently in the competition so far and somehow shut down Australia’s creativity behind the scrum.
Easy enough, eh?
Team: S Hogg; S Maitland, M Bennett, P Horne, T Seymour; F Russell, G Laidlaw (capt); A Dickinson, F Brown, WP Nel; T Swinson, R Gray; B Cowan, J Hardie, D Denton.
Replacements: K Bryce, G Reid, J Welsh, A Strokosch, J Strauss, H Pyrgos, R Vernon, S Lamont.