Scotland call on Swinson to replace Gray against Australia

Scotland centre Richie Vernon has revealed that his coach Vern Cotter is using the words of legendary football coach Alex Ferguson to inspire the team ahead of Sunday’s quarter-final with Australia. The task is pretty challenging when it comes to older players and men. “It’s not like New Zealand, who we’ve never beaten”.

“It’s important that you keep reinforcing that throughout the week”, Moore said.

Make no mistake, Scotland will be a test for the Aussies. Instead our wins have been based on an excellent ground game, patience, and dominance in the scrums.

“All I had to do was catch it and run”. Or we could go to six pools of four, with six automatic qualifiers and two fastest losers topping up the quarters. Once that whistle goes, Scotland will have only their talent on which to rely. Scotland lost narrowly 21-17 in 1979. And we’ve got the bloody French in the Quarter Finals this weekend!

Australia won that second Test 33-9, although perhaps more portentous was the stand-out display by a young Canberra winger by the name of David Campese in an under-21 trial that acted as a curtain-raiser for the match. We’ve had three training sessions – one tomorrow – to think of things.

“These are things that we anticipate, though we don’t like them”. He’s a calming influence, but you can see his will to win in everything he does. There’s not many like him. You’re starting to see that we’re a much better side then we were.

Unless the Scots’ appeal is successful and they can then somehow shoot down the world’s number two-ranked side, it appears both men’s tournaments are up. Tim Swinson will likely take Gray’s place in the pack.

But the green-and-golds have emphatically turned those weaknesses around in blitzing the so-called “group of death”, emerging as the biggest threat to New Zealand’s World Cup crown in the process. It was a great experience.

Where New Zealand have been performing is in the backs. “We’ll take pleasure in that”, he said. The Exeter winger raced in to score 3 tries against a exhausted Uruguayan team. “Whichever team will be on the front foot will be able to win this game”.

“I’ve been watching on the box with friends”, he said.

“It will be very hard [against Australia]”.

“But I have been hearing from people that the atmosphere at the games has been sensational”.

“There’s going to be a lot of pain, it’s going to be physical and I want the players to enjoy that as well because that’s when it’s worth it”. It’s about playing winning rugby. His replacement at No 8, Ben McCalman, will not be shy in coming forward.

A coach imparts lessons to young players.

Can we make it three in a row at home base?

In picking Cowan and Hardie, Cotter is playing the Australians at their own game. I remember the whole game so well, because I remember it burning my lungs. I’m picking a comfortable victory… ohhh, there’s that headache again. The Sean Lineens of the world are not a problem, that’s fine.

Ford and Gray received their sanctions for an offence they weren’t yellow-carded for during the game in Newcastle on Saturday.

Giteau, who was on the bench in the 2003 quarterfinal against Scotland and missed a late conversion attempt that could have won the ’09 match at Murrayfield, was excluded from the Wallabies set up for four years until he returned under Cheika this season and cemented his spot at inside center. The disciplinary process and the suspensions meted out at the Rugby World Cup have become the most contentious issue at the tournament, with the general consensus that non-tier one nations have been penalised more harshly – well, non-tier one and Scotland.

“Having said that, Australia’s form going into the World Cup, and what they’ve shown during the Pool stage, has been outstanding”. We’re very close to being a very good side. But we are not going to worry too much about that because we have to worry about what we are going to do. So anything can happen. “We can win a game in 10 minutes, so just stay switched on and it’ll come”.

“They are a team that is more unsafe at the end, so we can’t even allow a slight slip in concentration”.