>> Scots thrash sad Wallabies
SCOTLAND produced one of the most memorable and magnificent performances of their recent history to enrapture Murrayfield with a 50-point thumping of the Wallabies.
Even the loss of star fullback Stuart Hogg to a hip injury during the warm-up could not derail the rampant Scots who ran in eight tries against the third best team in the world.
True the Wallabies were a man down from the 38th minute when tighthead prop Sekope Kepu was sent off for a shoulder-charge to the face of flanker Hamish Watson.
But John Barclay’s men took full advantage in sensational style.
With Hogg out, the Scots moved Maitland to fullback, brought Byron McGuigan in on the wing for his first start and put Ruaridh Jackson onto the bench.
Man of the match McGuigan, who scored two tries said: “That was some experience. I didn’t know I was starting until about 25 minutes before kick-off, but rather than being worried about it I was excited and coming into a team playing good attacking rugby helped.
“We knew in the second half being up against 14 men that we had to try and stretch things and we did just that.
“We all love playing with ball in hand and there is a great feeling going forward.”
Australia had the first chance after two minutes, but winger Reece Hodge missed the penalty.
They continued their early pressure, but some good defence saw Scotland earn a penalty and then clear their lines. A couple of strong runs by McGuigan had the crowd on their feet. And the fast tempo the Scots were playing at with scrum-half Ali Price and Finn Russell at the centre of everything, earned them a kickable penalty in front of the posts which was despatched by Russell .
In the 16th minute a loose ball in the midfield off Bernard Foley, was kicked ahead three times by McGuigan. It wasn’t pretty but he got the ball over the line and fell on it. Russell converted – moving to 101 points for his country.
McGuigan nearly grabbed a second try but was beaten to the touchdown by Australian scrum-half Will Genia.
The Wallabies, with hooker Stephen Moore playing his 129th and final Test, knew they had to prevent Scotland from dominating and their key men, skipper Michael Hooper, Genia and standoff Foley started to get into things.
It led to two tries, with centre Tevita Kuridrani going over for both, the second after Scotland had lost the ball in attack.
Foley converted one of them, before the complexion of the game changed utterly in the 38th minute.
Kepu recklessly charged into a ruck and hit Scotland back-row Watson full in the face with his shoulder. He was rightly sent off and a minute later the Wallabies paid the first instalment of a high price for his foolishness when a neat sidestep by Price put him over for Scotland’s second try.
Converted by Russell, it was 17-12 at half-time.
The second half started like a runaway train.
Australia scored through full-back Kurtley Beale to make it 17-17 before two quickfire tries from Scotland. The first came when Maitland took advantage of space out wide to run in from 35 metres and then second-row Jonny Gray went over.
A Russell conversion made it 29-17 and then two further tries for Scotland came before the hour mark as they started to run riot against the tiring 14 men.
Huw Jones and McGuigan again were the scorers.
Australian replacement Lopeti Timani got their fourth try, but Scotland had the last word with tries from skipper Barclay and hooker Stuart McInally.
Wallaby coach Michael Cheika said: “I don’t think the red card was the deciding moment – we simply didn’t keep the ball well enough.
“Scotland fed off of that, found loads of energy from the crowd, and they played some pretty good attacking stuff.”