An inexperienced Scotland team ran out very comfortable winners against Canada in Ottawa on Saturday evening.
Here is a stats roundup from one of the largest victories in the national side’s history.
Points scored
This was the 17th time that Scotland men have scored 50 or more points in a Test match, with eight of those occasions coming in the last seven years.
That was immediately after a lost decade in terms of scoring, when the dark blues went ten years without bringing up a half century in a game.
It is just the second time the Scots have scored 50 or more points in an away fixture after a 65-23 win over USA in San Francisco in 2002 (also nine times at home and six times at neutral venues).
Scotland’s top five points scored tallies of all-time
- Scotland 100-8 Japan (Perth 2004)
- Scotland 89-0 Cote d’Ivoire (Rustenburg 1995)
- Scotland 84-0 Romania (Lille 2023)
- Canada 12-73 Scotland (Ottawa 2024)
- USA 23-65 Scotland (San Francisco 2002)
During the second half against Canada, Scotland scored 49 points. They have only exceeded that mark twice in any half of rugby – Japan 2004 (64 points in the second half) and Cote d’Ivoire 1995 (55 points in the second half).
Tries scored
There is only one previous occasion when Scotland Men have scored exactly 11 tries in a match – versus Zimbabwe at Murrayfield during the 1991 Rugby World Cup.
The win against Canada was the eighth time in total that the Scots have notched 10 or more tries in a Test match. In date order, these matches are:
- 26th February 1887 v Wales – 12 tries
- 30th May 1987 v Zimbabwe – 11 tries
- 26th May 1995 v Cote d’Ivoire – 13 tries
- 22nd June 2002 v USA – 10 tries
- 13th November 2004 v Japan – 15 tries
- 20th October 2021 v Tonga – 10 tries
- 30th September 2023 v Romania – 12 tries
- 6th July 2024 v Canada – 11 tries
The scorers
A quick-fire stat for each of the try scorers.
1st – Josh Bayliss
His try was the 600th scored in the 21st century by Scotland Men (258 Tests). It took until 1995 to bring up 600 tries in the 20th century (375 Tests).
2nd and 3rd – Dylan Richardson
He made both more carries (21) and more tackles (17) than any player on the pitch from either side. His combined tally of 38 was 17 more than anyone else in the Scotland lineup.
4th and 7th – Arron Reed
This was the 40th time in the Townsend era that a player scored two or more tries in a game – 31 doubles, seven hat-tricks and two quadruples.
5th and 6th – Gus Warr
In the last decade only one other scrum-half has scored more than one try in a match for Scotland Men – George Horne with a double versus Argentina and two against Russia (Horne also added one from the wing to make it a hat-trick against the Russians).
8th – Harry Paterson
The fullback has scored his first international try before he has even notched one for his club side, Edinburgh.
9th – Jamie Dobie
Had the most try involvements of anyone in the side with a hat-trick of assists to add to his own score.
10th – Stafford McDowall
He is the first Scotland captain to score a try since the 2022 Six Nations. Has an 82% win percentage as skipper for club and country.
11th – Kyle Steyn
Has scored or assisted at least one try in seven of his last nine games for Glasgow and Scotland.
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