USA v Scotland

The second test match of the 2018 Summer Series will be against Scotland on Saturday, June 16 with the kickoff at 8 PM CT at BBVA Compass Stadium, Houston, TX. In the first match, the USA beat Russia 62-13.

The Eagles are ranked 15th in the world by World Rugby, while Scotland is ranked 6th. The match is a great opportunity to meet a Tier 1 country and assess the progress of the USA National team. The Eagles squad, as during the first match of the Summer Series against Russia, consists of all professional rugby players, the first time in this has happened in an international test match Series.

The match kicks off at 8 PM CT with tickets starting at $23 and available at usarugby.org/tickets and a LIVE stream featured on FloRugby. The game is also broadcast LIVE on CBS Sports.

Saturday at 3:30 pm CT at Rice University, the Men’s Junior All-Americans face Canada in the final match of their World Rugby Trophy Qualifier. Admission to the game, held at the intramural fields, is free.

USA Men’s Eagles

Head Coach Gary Gold has kept the same starters that defeated Russia 62-13. He has made two changes in the reserves with Dylan Fawsitt for James Hilterbrand and Titi Lamositele for Olive Kilifi.

The Eagles scored eight tries and seven conversions against Russia. That was a record performance against them.

Scotland has opted for a team that has nine starters with four or fewer caps. The team is comprised of professionals, thirteen of which play for either the Glasgow Warriors or Edinburgh, one for the Sale Sharks, and one unattached.

Scotland opened their Summer test last Saturday defeating Canada 48-10. The United States opened their summer schedule adding a win over Russia and now have 6 victories on the year.

Scotland

Head Coach Gregor Townsend has changed 12 of the starters to face the USA after Scotland’s 48-10 win over Canada on June 9. The match against the USA will be held this Saturday at the BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston, Texas (16 June, kick-off 8 pm local time; Sunday 2 am UK time) – live on BBC.

Townsend has named Glasgow Warriors full-back Stuart Hogg as captain. Glasgow Warriors Matt Fagerson (back-row) and George Horne (scrum-half) will make their starting debut, as well as their first international appearances.

Edinburgh Lock Ben Toolis and wing Blair Kinghorn along with Sale Sharks wing Byron McGuigan are the three players to retain their places. Five players, Glasgow Warriors trio Jamie Bhatti (prop), George Turner (hooker) and Adam Hastings (flyhalf), as well as Edinburgh lock Lewis Carmichael and back-row Luke Hamilton, make their first start for Scotland at the home of the Houston Dynamos.

Scotland Head Coach Gregor Townsend said, “We always planned to play as much of the squad as possible on this tour, and we also deliberately picked more Edinburgh players in the first game because their season finished earlier. Now we welcome most of the Glasgow Warriors contingent into the team. On top of that, there are seven players making their first starts for the country, which is really exciting, and we are looking forward to them going out and grabbing this opportunity.”

“The USA have won their last six games and scored a lot of points in the process. They’ve beaten two teams that have already qualified for the Rugby World Cup – Uruguay and Russia – and put 60 points on both of them. They are definitely improving as a team and are playing with a lot of confidence.”

“You can see in the way they attack and defend that they are well coached, added to which there are some exceptional individuals that offer running threats throughout their side, so this will be a real test for us on Saturday.”

Scotland will complete the 2018 Summer Test campaign against Argentina in Resistencia on June 23 (kick-off 4.40pm, 8.40pm UK time), which will be shown live on Channel 4.

USA & Scotland Squads

USA vs. Scotland: 1 Eric Fry 2 Joe Taufete’e 3 Paul Mullen 4 Samu Manoa 5 Nick Civetta 6 John Quill 7 Hanco Germishuys 8 Cam Dolan 9 Shaun Davies 10 AJ MacGinty 11 Marcel Brache 12 Paul Lasike 13 Bryce Campbell 14 Blaine Scully (C) 15 Will Hooley 16 Dylan Fawsitt 17 Titi Lamositeli 18 Chris Baumann 19 Greg Peterson 20 Ben Landry 21 Nate Augspurger 22 Will Magie 23 Dylan Audsley

Scotland vs. USA: