New-look Scotland run in 11 tries to thrash Canada

A new-look Scotland side hit back from an early deficit as they bagged a 73-12 win over Canada, debutants Arron Reed and Gus Warr each claiming a brace of tries.

Reed and Warr were two of five uncapped players in Scotland’s line-up with a host of key players rested at the start of their Americas tour and they fell behind to Lucas Rumball’s early try.

But any prospect of an upset was snuffed out from the moment Josh Bayliss went over for the first of Scotland’s 11 tries at TD Place Stadium, Ross Thompson adding five conversions and Ben Healy four.

Dylan Richardson bagged a first-half double on his first international appearance since November 2021 as Scotland, at sixth in the world ranked 15 places higher than Canada, went in 24-5 ahead at half-time.

Wing Reed struck in either half and scrum-half Warr touched down twice after the interval, while Harry Paterson, Jamie Dobie, Stafford McDowall and Kyle Steyn added gloss to the scoreline as Scotland ultimately ran out comfortable winners.

However, they were given an initial wake-up call in Ottawa as Canada came storming out of the traps, capitalising on several errors from their opponents.

The hosts were camped inside the Scotland 22 in the opening exchanges and were duly rewarded after eight minutes when captain Rumball burst over following a driving maul.

Spurred into action, Scotland hit back four minutes later with their first real attack as Paterson punctured the defensive line and offloaded to Currie on the left wing, his pass back inside allowing Bayliss to go over unopposed.

Richardson had his first try after a quarter of an hour having collected an offload from Thompson, who converted both of Scotland’s opening scores to put them 14-5 ahead.

Thompson failed to split the posts when Richardson dotted down from a surging maul and was again wayward with his kick when Reed marked his international bow with a try before half-time, Paterson the architect of the move with an offload out the back of his hand which freed the debutant to score.

Warr reinforced Scotland’s lead after the break, first dancing through the line and while Canada briefly held out, the scrum-half collected the ball again and dived over the ruck for a debut try.

Kyle Baillie’s converted try gave Canada respite from the Scotland onslaught, but the impressive Paterson and Warr combined for the latter to shrug off a couple of challenges and touch down.

Scotland looked a threat every time they pushed forward and Reed grabbed his second of the match after barrelling down the left wing, barging past a couple of defenders, before going over.

Scotland breached the 50-point barrier just after the hour mark when Paterson deservedly got on the scoreboard following some excellent interplay, while Dobie touched down underneath the posts after being teed up by Reed.

McDowall also went over underneath the posts after some deft footwork to evade several challenges while Steyn gratefully accepted Healy’s offload to round off the scoring.