Scotland Looking For Patience.

Scotland captain Scott Murray urged fans not to lose faith with his fledgling side. Scotland, still looking for a first win under Australian coach Matt
Williams, collected the Six Nations wooden spoon after losing all
five matches
in this season’s tournament.

They have a chance to redress the balance at Murrayfield on
Saturday when
they take on the Barbarians in a non-cap international and second-row
Murray
said after Monday’s squad announcement: “We just want to play
well against the
Barbarians and hopefully a win will come from that.

“All the guys are massively proud to play for Scotland and
they are keen
that the fans keep believing in them.

“It’s going to be a long road but we are definitely going to
get there,
knowing what young lads are coming through.

“They are stronger, fitter and faster than I was when I was a
young fella
so we just urge them to keep supporting us because we will get
there,” he
added.

“I am massively excited about the tour and playing the
Barbarians,
especially with all these young guys around me.
It’s a massive challenge for us on Saturday, there are a lot
of new guys
and we are treating it like a Test match.”

Murray, 28, said that there were positives to take from their
37-16 defeat
against Ireland in their final Six Nations match of the season as
Scotland
went in search of a first win against the Barbarians, rugby union’s
most
prestigious invitational side.
“The way we started to perform at the end of the Six Nations
was pretty
good and we played pretty well in patches against Ireland,”
Murray said.

“Hopefully we will get a bit of confidence and move onto
bigger and better
things.
If we can get our line-outs and our scrums working it’s
definitely
possible that we could win but we just want to go out there and play
well.”

Scotland squad.
Backs:
Graeme Beveridge (Glasgow), Stephen Cranston (Borders), Chris
Cusiter
(Borders), Simon Danielli (Bath/ENG), Andrew Henderson (Glasgow),
Gareth
Morton (Borders), Dan Parks (Glasgow), Chris Paterson (Edinburgh),
Tom Philip
(Edinburgh), Simon Webster (Edinburgh)
Forwards:
Gordon Bulloch (Glasgow), Bruce Douglas (Borders), Iain Fullarton
(Sale/ENG), Scott Gray (Bath/ENG), Andrew Hall (Glasgow), Allister
Hogg
(Edinburgh), Alastair Kellock (Edinburgh), Cameron Mather (Glasgow),
Euan
Murray (Glasgow), Scott Murray (Edinburgh, capt), Steve Scott
(Borders), Tom
Smith (Northampton/ENG).

AFP – 2004.