Scotland see off Georgia with second-half surge

Scotland have beaten Georgia 36-9 in their final World Cup warm-up match at Murrayfield, following up their win in Tbilisi last weekend over the same opposition. 

Gregor Townsend had opted to wrap up a number of his key men in cotton wool as he left them out of his squad for World Cup send-off ahead of their tournament opener against Ireland in Yokohama on September 22.

Skipper Stuart McInally, Fraser Brown, John Barclay, Greig Laidlaw, Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg were all spared action before the squad departs for Japan on Monday.

Glasgow’s Ryan Wilson skippered the national team for the first time while Jonny Gray returned from a hamstring strain to make his first appearance of the warm-up series.

After Ali Price touched down, Blair Kinghorn dived over for Scotland’s second score after Adam Hastings and Scott Cummings led a charge, with Darcy Graham playing a crucial role in the build-up too.

Keep up with all the action from Scotland versus Georgia at Murrayfield on the RugbyPass live bloghttps://t.co/qeeQ32o5BQ

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But Hastings’ failure to convert either of the tries meant Scotland’s lead was not as big as it might have been and a trio of Tedo Abzhandadze penalties saw it trimmed back to 10-9 at the interval.

Scotland continued to apply pressure and scored again through Sam Johnson after 50 minutes following some decent spadework by the pack. Scotland completed a 36-9 romp with further tries from man of the match Darcy Graham, George Horne and his brother Peter.

But there was cause for concern late on as lock Ben Toolis was helped off after suffering a worrying head knock and Townsend will now be sweating on his fitness ahead of their World Cup opener with Ireland in little over a fortnight’s time.

– Press Association 

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