Scotland wrapped up their Rugby World Cup warm-up campaign with a 33-6 victory over Georgia at Murrayfield on Saturday, scoring all their points in the second half.
Gregor Townsend’s men were 6-0 behind at the interval but they ran in five unanswered tries in the second period, with wing Duhan van der Merwe grabbing a double to take his Test-match tally to 20.
“It was important for us to squeeze them (Georgia) up a bit — if our forwards get gain-line then it’s much easier for our backs to go wide,” Van der Merwe told Amazon Prime.
Scotland coach Townsend added: “They (Georgia) were very good in contact in the first half, and they stopped a lot of our attacks.
“Weirdly, that was a better preparation for us than scoring tries in the first half.
Springbok challenge
Scotland now face a formidable task when they take on Van der Merwe’s native South Africa, the reigning champions, in their World Cup opener in Marseille on September 10.
The Springboks served notice of their intention to win a fourth men’s global title by beating arch-rivals New Zealand 35-7 in a warm-up match at Twickenham on Friday as the All Blacks suffered their heaviest defeat of all time.
“South Africa could have won by another 10 or 20 points,” said Townsend.
“They had a lot of domination in the first half where they didn’t get points on the board, and then second half they were clearly the better team.”
The former Scotland playmaker added: “That’s one of the best performances I’ve seen from them over the last few years, and if they play like that against us, we’ll have to bring our best ever game to beat them.”
For the fourth warm-up match in succession, Scotland were behind at half-time after Georgia fly-half Luka Matkava kicked two penalties.
But a promising first half for the visitors had a downside when hooker Shalva Mamukashvili — making his 100th Test appearance — limped off just a fortnight ahead of their World Cup opener against Australia in Paris.
Scotland, as happened in their previous two home matches against Italy and France, rallied after the interval as they made it three wins from four warm-up Tests, with Rory Darge, Kyle Steyn and Jack Dempsey scoring tries as well.
Van der Merwe sparked the revival when he strolled in on the left after a brilliant kick-pass by Finn Russell, with the fly-half converting to edge Scotland ahead.
From then on it was one-way traffic.
Dempsey powered his way through a ruck of Georgian bodies to score just left of the posts in the 59th minute, with replacement Ben Healy — on for Russell — converting.
Steyn — who scored a double in defeat away to France last time out — added a fourth try in the 69th minute before Van der Merwe completed the try-scoring two minutes from time.
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