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History will be made on Wednesday in Shizuoka, Japan. For the first time ever Russia and Scotland will square-off in a rugby match. The fixture is to be a Pool A game with Scotland needing a win to remain in contention for a place in the Quarter Finals.
Russia Head Coach Lyn Jones has opted to change nine players in his side for what is Russia’s final match in the tournament. The retained players from the match against Ireland are prop Kirill Gotovtsev; flanker Tagir Gadzhiev; scrum-half Dmitry Perov; fly half Ramil Gaisin; wing German Davydov; and fullback Vasily Artemyev.
Neither of Russia’s points scorers at RWC 2019 start the match. Fly-half Yury Kushnarev, who has kicked 14 points, is on the bench, while centre Kirill Golosnitskiy, who scored the opening try of RWC 2019 against Japan, is out of the 23 after colliding with a post while attempting to prevent Ireland flanker Peter O’Mahony’s try in Kobe.
Scotland head Coach Gregor Townsend has gone for 14 changes. This sees only winger Darcy Graham retained from the win over Samoa. The selection means Scotland have literally emptied the bench as Fraser Brown, Scott Cummings, Zander Fagerson, Adam Hastings, George Horne, Gordon Reid, Duncan Taylor and Ryan Wilson will all start against Russia.
In order to catch pool leaders Japan whom they face on Sunday, Scotland need a bonus point win from the match. They will have plenty of attacking players including Hastings, fullback Blair Kinghorn and USA born winger Tommy Seymour.
In the absence of Stuart McInally the team will be led by flanker John Barclay. He joins Fraser Brown and Ryan Wilson in the back-row.
In European competitions Russia play in the European Championship while Scotland play in the Six Nations. There is no promotion or relegation which explains, in part, why Russia and Scotland have never played each other. The additional factor is that Tier 1 sides rarely play against Tier 2 sides and when they do the opponents are more traditional teams such as Canada, Fiji, Japan, and Samoa.
Despite there being no prior internationals between the countries the heavy favorites are clearly Scotland. The Northern British side has competed in all RWC tournaments, making the Quarter Finals in every competition aside from 2011. Scotland are favorites to beat Russia by 30 points.
TEAMS
SCOTLAND
1 Gordon Reid, 2 George Turner, 3 Zander Fagerson, 4 Scott Cummings, 5 Ben Toolis, 6 John Barclay (capt.), 7 Fraser Brown, 8 Ryan Wilson, 9 George Horne, 10 Adam Hastings, 11 Darcy Graham, 12 Pete Horne, 13 Duncan Taylor, 14 Tommy Seymour, 15 Blair Kinghorn
Replacements: 16 Stuart McInally, 17 Simon Berghan, 18 WPNel, 19 Grant Gilchrist, 20 Magnus Bradbury, 21 Jamie Ritchie, 22 Henry Pyrgos, 23 Chris Harris
RUSSIA
1 Valeri Morozov, 2 Stanislav Selskiy, 3 Kirill Gotovtsev, 4 Andrei Ostrikov, 5 Evgeny Elgin, 6 Vitali Zhivatov, 7 Tagir Gadzhiev, 8 Nikita Vavilin, 9 Dmitri Perov, 10 Ramil Gaisin, 11 Vladislav Sozonov, 12 Dmitri Gerasimov, 13 Vladimir Ostroushko, 14 German Davydov, 15 Vasili Artemyev (capt.)
Replacements: 16 Sergei Chernyshev, 17 Azamat Bitiet, 18 Vladimir Podrezov, 19 Bogdan Fedotko, 20 Andrei Garbuzov, 21 Sergei Yanyushkin, 22 Anton Sychev, 23 Yuri Kushnarev
Date: Wednesday, October 9
Kick-Off: 16:15 local (00:15 Pacific, 03:15 Eastern, 04:15 Rio de la Plata)
Venue: ECOPA Stadium, Shizuoka
Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France)
Assistants: Wayne Barnes (England) & Federico Anselmi (Argentina)
TMO: Marius Jonker (South Africa)
Broadcasts: ESPN 3 (Latin/South America), NBC Sports Gold (USA), TSN 1/4 (Canada)
