Rugby World Cup 2015: Scotland pair win appeals, can play Australia

Fraser Brown and Tim Swinson will start for Scotland against Australia on Sunday in place of the suspended Ross Ford and Jonny Gray.

They now face the Wallabies on the biggest stage since they met in the RWC 2003 Quarter-Final in Brisbane, with the victor facing either Ireland or Argentina in the penultimate round.

Quinlan raised eyebrows, though, when he chose to ignore the views of match referee Jaco Peyper, who saw the incident but decided it did not pose a risk to the Samoan flanker.

“It’s frustrating for Scotland to have lost Ross Ford and Jonny Gray to suspensions, but you can’t let that affect the squad”, he said in his Paddy Power blog.

Ford and Gray were hit with a three-week ban after their illegal two-man tip tackle on Samoa’s Jack Lam.

But the Scots launched an appeal against the punishment and were relieved to learn on Saturday that a World Rugby disciplinary tribunal had backed their claim.

Following a review of the evidence, however, the Appeal Committee dismissed the finding that Ford and Gray had committed a risky tackle because the opposing player had not been dropped or driven.

“The players are therefore free to play again immediately”.

“We’ve been working hard over the last 10, 11 months to get real depth in all positions”, he said.

Paired with John Hardie – the man who effectively squeezed him out of the original travelling party – in a reshuffled back-row, the 29-year-old New Zealand-born forward has been selected for his pace on the ground as Cotter looks to snuff out Australia’s ability to get quick ball to their risky backs. And I know Nathan Hines very well and what he’ll be bringing in the background.

“We’ve got Kurtley Beale and Ben McCalman coming in to replace them and it’s really just a straight swap for those guys”.

“It is what I’ve been preparing for for the past two years and it is going to be a huge opportunity for us to go out there and do something we haven’t done for a few time”.

“We are aware that everybody is writing us off but if you don’t have self-belief that you can genuinely win then there’s no point going out”.