McInally: Scotland have lot of work to do

Stuart McInally was not totally satisfied after Scotland’s win over Samoa, even though his two tries helped set up Saturday’s 44-38 success.

The hooker took full advantage of Ross Ford’s injury to turn out a man-ofthe-match performance with two tries – but saw the hosts concede five times in an 11-try thriller at BT Murrayfield.

McInally, earning his first cap for over a year, admitted there was plenty of work to be done before the visit of New Zealand next week.

“It was 32-10 when I went off, with a bit of breathing space,” he said.

“But it was a concern how quickly they responded to our tries.

“In a way we’re disappointed, but in a way it’s probably better than it going perfectly at the beginning.

“Ahead of next week we have a lot to work on, we’ll look at our defence and in particular our defence in our 22; they seemed to score a wee bit too easily so we’re happy, but there’s a lot to improve upon.”

He added: “It was frustrating that whenever we had the ball and holding on to it, we were either scoring or getting a penalty, and likewise whenever Samoa had it, it was the same story.

“The refs are tightening up on the offside laws now and we got pinged for that a few times, so we will need to fix that for next week.

“We need to work on looking after the ball, because when we did we did some really good stuff but we were just coughing up the ball a wee bit too easily.

“Against a team like Samoa, they’re a really good team with good individuals especially in the back line, which caused us a lot of problems.”

Along with McInally’s brace, tries from Stuart Hogg, Alex Dunbar, Pete Horne and Huw Jones made sure it was a winning start on home soil for Gregor Townsend ahead of exciting clashes with the All Blacks and Australia, and McInally is excited about the opportunity to test himself against the world’s best.

He said: “They have a lot of really good individuals and play incredibly well as a team. Their scrum is probably underrated. I think it’s really good and it’s something I’m really looking forward to; challenging myself against the best team in the world.

“If I get selected for that it would rank up there as one of the highest moments (of my career).”