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Your Scotland XV

Tommy Seymour celebrates pic © Al Ross

Ahead of the official annoucnement later this week here is the official unofficial Scottish Rugby Blog XV for the Autumn tests, as selected by you the reader, along with the percentage of votes received out of a total of 314 selections.

Fullback: Stuart Hogg (97%)
Wings: Sean Maitland (43%) and Tommy Seymour (43%)
Outside Centre: Mark Bennett (92%)
Inside Centre: Alex Dunbar (86%)
Standoff: Finn Russell (72%)
Scrum-half: Chris Cusiter (67%)

No 8: Johnnie Beattie (89%)
Openside: Chris Fusaro (45%)
Blindside: Rob Harley (71%)
Second Row: Jonny Gray (43%) and Richie Gray (36%)
Tighthead Prop: Euan Murray (75%)
Hooker: Ross Ford (40%)
Loosehead: Gordon Reid: (69%)

Biggest miss: Matt Scott – 32%

As you can see, most positions were chosen unanimously, although Fraser Brown (33%) and Blair Cowan (41%) came pretty close in their respective polls.

What do you make of it?

UPDATE: a few folk asked for the full results so here they are in summary:

15: SH 305, SM 9

11/14: SM 272, TS 267, TV 73, SL 8, DF 6

13: MB 288, AD 21, SL 4, SH 1

12: AD 269, DT 25, FR 10, SL 10

10: FR 227, DW 48, TH 39

9: CC 210, HP 62, GL 42

8: JB 281, AA 31, KL 2

7: CF 140, BC 130, HW 44

6: RH 222, AS 67, BC 25

4/5: JG 269, RG 227, GG 86, TS 45, KL 1

3: EM 235, GC 72, ZF 7

2: RF 125, FB 103, SL 86

1: GR 216, AD 91, AD 7

13 Responses

  1. Can’t help smiling that even the democratic will of Scottish fans can’t dislodge Ford from the starting line up. Really, for all the flak he gets it is obvious there is no stand out candidate to replace him.

    Surprised Murray is so popular though, he seems to give away a penalty every other scrum and is hardly the most mobile prop around.

    Its a pretty strong team but too many players with big reputations who often underdeliver: Ford; Murray; Gray; Beattie; Hogg.

    It would also look a hell of a lot stronger with Rennie (probably never to play test rugby again) and Strauss in the backrow.

  2. No major surprises there, although I did think Scott Lawson would have nudged Ross Ford. I genuinely feel the backline picks itself. Ford incidentally, is the only player never to have worn a Glasgow jersey!

  3. Laidlaw named captain so Vern has repeated mistake of naming a captain who probably isn’t first choice at moment in his position. I have read remarks about his fine form and speeding up his distribution for the cherry and whites this year which I’m not so sure about (hope it is but …..). His distribution was shockingly slow last year and contributed to a ineffective back line. Feel for cusiter as he’s been by far our best scrum half for the past 2 years. Laidlaw is obvously one of the undroppables. What do 67% of the voters know?

  4. What this says to me is Cusiter has not recovered from injury in time. It also suggests he will pick Finn Russell, because whilst Russell is an exciting player I think it would help him not to have the kicking duties in early games.

    Also I would be shocked if BVC plans to play the same 15 in all three games. He is still checking out players at this stage, which is pretty much the point of these games is it not? I dont think we will see the “first 15” until the 6 nations.

  5. How about including the following in the squad- Finlay Calder, John Calder, Gary Armstrong, Sean Linean, Gavin Hastings, Scott Hastings Damian Cronin John Jeffries, Jim Aitken, Scott Hastings.

    The current crop of player are guff by comparisson. I realy feel for Vern Cotter- a great coach but he has to chose from a bunch of jokers. Of course, the SRU are responsible for this diabolical situation but I hope that they dont end up blaming the coach for not winning the next world cup. I would sya that it would be progress if we could finish in the top 3 in the next 6 nations and rech the quarter finals of the world cup. Please just dont give us another wooden spoon or a last day contst against Ita;ly for the woooder spoon. Come on SRU- after 15 years of this scenario the fans deserve better.

    1. It’s been 20 years since last slam success. Some memories stretch that far and further.
      Could this be our year? (I say this every year)

    2. Every time we get a good result I think we have turned a corner. this happened a couple of times with Andy Robinson when we got wins over SA and OZbut in recent years the trendd has been poor with occassional one off sucesses. We seem to chop and change the coach without tackling the real issues- mainly a lack of top professional teams/players and not enough being donme at grass routes.

      I’m really sick fed up of it

  6. A telling statistic that only 1 x Edinburgh player in democratic line up. All others are Glasgow or ex Glasgow. Slight correction on the Ross Ford vote. We were only able to select players who had been chosen in the squad, so Pat MacArthur could not be voted for. Maybe zero Edinburgh players would have been in the team had he been included.

  7. Can we see the full results anywhere? Just interested in votes for Visser and a few others.
    Amazingly high scores for Hogg, Bennett, Dunbar, Russell, Beattie. The high scores for the props are interesting. Maybe Grant would push for Reid’s spot.

  8. Stuck out in the UAE and NO sports channels here are showing any of the games. Everyone but Scotland. :(

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