Scotland beat the USA 39-15 and secured a bonus point in a tight Pool B tussle at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium tonight.
The Scots scored three of their five tries before half time with 102kg right wing Simon Danielli snaring a double with a good demonstration of power and pace.
Scotland’s tighthead prop Gavin Kerr had the vocal 45,000 crowd on its feet with a remarkable try in the 32nd minute when he charged down an attempted kick and outsprinted the cover to dive on the ball over the line to give his team a 24-9 lead at the break.
However, stout Eagles’ defence kept the Scot’s from crossing their line again until the 72nd minute when fly half Gregor Townsend dived over following a sweeping movement to give his team the crucial bonus point.
Scotland finally started to string some phases together and crossed for their fifth try two minutes later when left wing Chris Paterson dived over.
He added the extras with a sideline conversion to go with his other three and two penalties for an individual haul of 19 points.
The USA used their giant forward pack to good effect throughout the match and big defence from both sides lead to a number of handling errors in a game which struggled to get into any flow.
The Eagles went desperately close to a try four minutes into the second half when centre Phillip Eloff lost control of the ball over the line after kicking through from a Mike Hercus penalty attempt that ricocheted off the up right.
Fly half Hercus kicked all his team’s points with five penalties keeping the USA within two converted tries for most of the second spell until Scotland sealed the match with the two late tries.
The match featured two yellow cards with referee Jonathan Kaplan sending Scotissh prop Tom Smith to the sin bin for a professional foul on the stroke of half time.
The Eagles were down to 14 men when full back Paul Emerick was sent for a similar offence near his own goal line in the 65th minute.
Danielli had a storming start to the match with two tries inside the opening quarter. Both scored by the big wing popping up on the left hand side.
Paterson gave an assured display with the boot and Glenn Metcalfe ran the ball back strongly from full back.
In the forwards Scotland’s best was Smith and lock Stuart Grimes, his side’s chief lineout winner.
Number 8 Simon Taylor was his typically industrious self.
USA battled manfully up front with second rower Alec Parker and prop Mike MacDonald excelling in the tight.
The win puts Scotland equal with France at the head of Pool B with both securing bonus points from each of their opening games.
They play each other at Sydney’s Telstra Stadium this Saturday night in what should be a classic encounter between the European heavy weights to determine the probable pool winner.
Scotland 39
Scorers:
Tries: Simon Danielli 2, Gavin Kerr, Gregor Townsend, Chris Paterson
Conv: Paterson 4
Penalties: Paterson 2
USA 15
Scorers:
Tries:
Conv:
Penalties: Mike Hercus 5