Although this will be the first-ever Test match between these nations, it comes a little over two years since a Scotland ‘A’ side played in Santiago.
A dozen of the Chilean line-up from that day return, although Nicolas Garafulic, Javier Carrasco, Clemente Saavedra and Alfonso Escobar are the only players who will have started both fixtures.
There are four players among the current Scots’ selection who were also part of the ‘A-Team’ – Sione Tuipulotu, Pierre Schoeman, Javan Sebastian and Matt Currie, with Tuipulotu the only returning starter.
Of the six uncapped players who appeared for Scotland back in June 2022, five have gone on to full international honours so far – Ollie Smith, Matt Currie, Johnny Matthews, Murphy Walker and Glen Young – with Ben Muncaster the only one yet to make his Test debut.
Head to heads
With Huwipulotu temporarily split up, the Tuipulotu part of that pairing gets a relatively rare outing with Kyle Steyn. The Warriors’ skipper will make his first ever international start in the centres – and his first appearance at 13 at any level for nearly 20 months.
This particular duo will link up in midfield for just the third time, with the previous occasions coming during the 2021/22 season. Stuipulotu contributed a brace of tries in each of their two games together for Glasgow and will be looking for a similarly productive afternoon in Santiago.
Steyn’s presence in the centres, along with Jamie Dobie starting on the wing, may be an attempt to enhance flexibility among the backline with a view to making more use of the six forwards, two backs split of substitutes that Scotland have dabbled with in recent years.
Reinforcing the pack with an extra replacement may help reduce the gap against the most physically abrasive sets of forwards such as South Africa, France and Ireland, but it requires maximum options from the reduced number of backs available – plus a little bit of luck on the injury front...
The age profile of Scotland’s loosehead props means that, looking ahead to the medium term future, Nathan McBeth may well be currently one of the more important figures for the national side.
As things stand, the Warriors’ prop is the only capped Scottish loosehead under the age of 30. With the likes of Oli Kebble and Allan Dell gradually falling out of contention, McBeth has continued to propel himself up the depth chart.
Next season he will have to compete for game time at Glasgow with two of those over-30s in the shape of Jamie Bhatti and Rory Sutherland which will hopefully push his development on even further.
Scotland’s coaches will be trying to manage two or three of the veterans through to the 2027 World Cup but McBeth is in with a serious shot of being involved there, as well as having the opportunity to be the most experienced head available in his position for the 2031 RWC cycle.
Patrick Harrison will be the 14th new cap of 2024 for Scotland. Across the last 70 years only 2013 and 2021 (15 each) have seen more debuts for the national side.
The Edinburgh player will be the 13th different hooker to play for Scotland during the Townsend era. He will also be the fourth new face in this position in the dark blues’ last ten matches after they went 25 games across two years without a debut in the number 2 or number 16 jerseys.
This is another priority area for the Scottish side after losing Stuart McInally, Fraser Brown and (most likely in the short-term) George Turner in quick succession, three players who accounted for more than 90% of the starts at hooker during the Townsend era prior to this tour.
Officials
Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France); Assistant Referees: Andrew Brace (Ireland) and Gonzalo De Achaval (Uruguay); TMO: Marius van der Westhuizen (South Africa)
It will be a very significant evening for Raynal on Saturday. He will become the fourth referee from France to take charge of 50 Test matches but this milestone match will also be his last ever as he retires from officiating aged 42.
The French whistler has been a pretty regular presence for Scotland over the years and this will be his eighth time refereeing the dark blues. While his early outings included two of the most scarring defeats of the 2010s – against Tonga in 2012 and England in 2017 – more recently he was the man in the middle for the national side’s last two Test wins in South America, both against Argentina.
World ranking watch
Current world rankings 22 Chile (61.39) vs 6 Scotland (82.82)
As was the case for their matches against Canada and USA, a victory for Scotland will gain them nothing in the World Rugby rankings while a defeat will see them drop either 2.00 points for a loss by 15 or fewer, or 3.00 points for a loss by 16 or more.
Miscellany
- Across the last seven years, the starting XV for the game against Canada (58) on the current tour is the only one with fewer caps than this selection (129).
- Strange but true: of the 17 games that Kyle Steyn has started at outside centre for Glasgow and Scotland, he has only ever been paired up with 12s whose names start with S – Sam Johnson (9 times), Stafford McDowall (5) and Sione Tuipulotu (3).
- With an average age of 25.9, this is the youngest 23 picked for Scotland during the Townsend era, barring the three matches played on the 2018 summer tour.
- The seven exiles in the XV are the most in the starting line-up for Scotland since the eight who took to the field for a World Cup warmup match against France at Murrayfield in 2019.
- Forwards Nathan McBeth, Will Hurd and Ewan Johnson all earn their first starts, taking the number of players who have started a Test match under head coach Gregor Townsend to 107.
- During their recent win over Belgium, Chile’s Santiago Videla became his country’s record points scorer with 242. That’s five points more than the starting Scottish backline can muster collectively.
· This is the first Scotland 23 solely made up of players handed their Test debuts by Gregor Townsend.
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