Scotland make 14 changes to the starting XV that tackled South Africa. The 17 alterations to the 23 have only been exceeded twice during Gregor Townsend’s time in charge, both against Canada (20 in 2018 and 19 in 2024).
Portugal only call upon ten of the matchday squad from their historic World Cup win over Fiji last year, with just six returning starters.
Eight of the visitors’ starting XV have played club rugby in France this season – six in Pro D2 while Raffaele Storti (Stade Francais) and Nicolas Martins (Montpellier) have featured in the Top 14.
Head to heads
Backs
Darcy Graham – a reminder that he has scored 11 tries in his last five appearances at Murrayfield for Scotland.
Rory Hutchinson – this will be the first time he has played at Murrayfield for 1,912 days – more than five years. It’s long enough since his most recent cap (away to Argentina) that he was only eight months short of qualifying to play for England again.
Stafford McDowall – tenth player to captain Scotland on more than one occasion during the Townsend era. He has skippered Glasgow and Scotland in 18 previous matches with a win rate of 83%.
Arron Reed – six back 3 players (Byron McGuigan, Darcy Graham, Duhan van der Merwe, Kyle Steyn, Rufus McLean and Ollie Smith) have scored tries on their first start at Murrayfield during the Townsend era. Can he join them?
Adam Hastings – this will be his 16th start at fly-half for Scotland. Finn Russell (51) is the only other player in double digits for appearances in the number 10 jersey during the Townsend era.
George Horne – 2,345 days on from his Test debut, he will make his first start for Scotland at Murrayfield. He has started games in Houston, Resistencia, Fukuroi City, Rome, Washington and Montevideo but, until Saturday, never in Edinburgh. 26 of his 32 previous caps have been won from the bench.
Forwards
Patrick Harrison – across a four-year, 40-match span between 2017 and 2021, just three players started in the number two jersey for Scotland (Stuart McInally, Fraser Brown and George Turner). Harrison will be the fourth different starting hooker in the dark blues’ last eight games.
Will Hurd – since March 2015 (48 games), only four tighthead props have started matches for Scotland at Murrayfield, Hurd will be the fifth.
Alex Craig – this will be his first appearance for Scotland at Murrayfield for 1,338 days (20/3/21) and his first ever in front of fans.
Alex Samuel – he is the 75th debutant of the Townsend era and the 125th different player to feature for Scotland during this time.
Luke Crosbie – just three of his previous 11 caps have been won at Murrayfield.
Ben Muncaster – he is the sixth player from the Scotland A lineup v Chile in 2022 to graduate to a full cap after Ollie Smith, Glen Young, Murphy Walker, Johnny Matthews and Matt Currie.
Josh Bayliss – he is the only player other than Matt Fagerson or Jack Dempsey to wear the number 8 jersey in Scotland’s last 34 Tests (Fagerson – 16; Dempsey – 15; Bayliss – 3).
Replacements
Rory Sutherland – including Saturday, 14 of his last 19 caps have come in the number 17 jersey. 15 of his first 17 caps were as a starter.
Elliot Millar-Mills – the oldest player in the matchday squad at 32 years, 4 months and 9 days. There are four over 30s in the 23 and all of them are front rows – Millar-Mills, Bhatti, Matthews and Sutherland.
Ewan Johnson – he is the only player to feature for Scotland during the Townsend era while playing for a club in France’s Pro D2.
Freddy Douglas – he will be the 18th player to make their Test debut for Scotland during 2024, the most in any calendar year since 1947, when there were 32 new caps.
Jamie Dobie – the wing/scrum-half is the only player to feature in every one of Scotland’s last seven Tests.
Officials
- Referee: Takehito Namekawa (Japan)
- Assistant Referees 1: Luke Pearce and Anthony Woodthorpe (both England)
- TMO: Brian MacNeice (Ireland) FPRO: Mark Patton (Ireland)
Over eight games across the summer and autumn, Scotland will have dealt with seven different referees for the very first time. Mathieu Raynal’s international swansong in Chile was the only time a familiar face took charge of a Scottish fixture during the last five months.
Out in the TMO van, Brian MacNeice may well be hoping people don’t remember what happened the last time he was at Murrayfield.
Sadly, those who witnessed the farcical finish to the Six Nations game against France earlier this year are unlikely to be able to wipe it from their memory.
World ranking watch
Current world rankings: 6th Scotland (82.70) vs 15th Portugal (68.82)
For the fifth time this year, Scotland will play in a game in which they cannot gain any ranking points but would lose the maximum amount possible if they draw (-1.00), lose by 15 or fewer (-2.00) or lose by 16 or more (-3.00).
England are the only side playing at the weekend who can overtake the Scots – although the Auld Enemy will need to avoid defeat against the Springboks for that to happen.
The dark blues cannot overhaul anyone ahead of them in the current rankings.
Miscellany
- The Scotland XV selected have just 85 previous Test starts behind them. The team that played against Canada over the summer is the only one selected by Gregor Townsend that had fewer (28).
- The matchday squad have 479 fewer caps than the selection that took on world champions South Africa last week (246 v 725).
- Rory Sutherland (35) has more caps than the rest of the Scotland bench combined (29).
- Darcy Graham (28 in 40 appearances) has scored more Test tries than the rest of the 23 combined (23 in 206 appearances).
- This is the first time a Scotland starting back row has not included any Glasgow players since the game against Japan in November 2021, ending a streak of 36 consecutive matches.
- This will be the 21st fixture that Scotland have played against a Tier 2 side outside of World Cups in the last decade. That includes ten matches at Murrayfield, one in Kilmarnock and ten on the road.
Read the rules here