Scott Ruled Out for Scotland

Scotland have made just one change to their starting XV for Saturday’s match with Wales as they prepare to bounce back from their opening Six Nations defeat to England.

The Edinburgh centre Matt Scott is ruled out with injury so Saracens’ Duncan Taylor takes his slot in the midfield.

The Scots will be desperate to kickstart their campaign in Cardiff after losing 15-9 to the Auld Enemy at Murrayfield last weekend but they will have to do much better than they managed on their last trip to the Principality Stadium. The Dark Blues suffered a record 51–3 loss to the Dragons two years ago.

Saturday’s match will be Taylor’s fifth start in 14 caps for Scotland and his first since the 2014 summer tour win over the United States, following a couple of injury-hit seasons.

Despite missing out on international opportunities Taylor, who partners Mark Bennett in the centre, has excelled for his club side, building on their English Premiership title success last season with stirring performances in the current campaign.

All else is unchanged for Scotland, meaning Stuart Hogg, Sean Maitland and Tommy Seymour make up the back three, with the backs completed by Finn Russell and the captain Greig Laidlaw.

The only other change to the matchday 23 is the inclusion of the veteran Glasgow wing Sean Lamont, who takes Taylor’s slot on the bench.

Scotland’s head coach Vern Cotter said: “This group have worked exceptionally hard this week to improve their accuracy under pressure after a frustrating opening game against England.

“We created opportunities that could have been capitalised upon, and converted into points. As a team we know we can perform better and believe we’re capable of making improvements all over the park.

“We know that Wales in Cardiff will not be easy, but our focus is on improving our attacking and defensive mindset.”

Scotland team

S Hogg (Glasgow); S Maitland (London Irish), M Bennett (Glasgow), D Taylor (Saracens), T Seymour (Glasgow); F Russell (Glasgow), G Laidlaw (Gloucester, capt); A Dickinson (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), WP Nel (Edinburgh), R Gray (Toulouse), J Gray (Glasgow), J Barclay (Scarlets), J Hardie (Edinburgh), D Denton (Bath).

Replacements S McInally (Edinburgh), G Reid (Glasgow), Z Fagerson (Glasgow), T Swinson (Glasgow), B Cowan (London Irish), S Hidalgo-Clyne (Edinburgh), D Weir (Glasgow), S Lamont (Glasgow).

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RWC Preview - Scotland v Japan Preview

Stuart Hogg will return from injury for Scotland's World Cup opener against Japan in Gloucester on Wednesday.

The full-back, 23, has recovered from an ankle problem sustained in the home warm-up win over Italy last month.

Scrum-half Greig Laidlaw captains the side, Grant Gilchrist partners Jonny Gray in the second row and winger Sean Lamont will win his 98th cap.

Flanker Josh Strauss is among the replacements, having recently become eligible under residency rules.

Japan caused a major upset when they beat South Africa 34-32 on Saturday, while Samoa top Pool B after their 25-16 win over the United States.

Scotland have won all four of their previous encounters with Japan, including World Cup pool matches in 1991 and 2003.

David Denton keeps Strauss out of the starting line-up at number eight, with Ryan Wilson and John Hardie the other loose forwards.

On the bench, Ryan Grant has recovered from an ankle problem to join Fraser Brown and Jon Welsh as the replacements for an all-Edinburgh front row of Alasdair Dickinson, Ross Ford and Willem Nel.

Japan, with four days to prepare for the match in the wake of their win over the Springboks, have made six changes to their starting XV.

Props Keita Inagaki and Hiroshi Yamashita come in and number eight Amanaki Mafi, who came on as a replacement against South Africa, on from the start.

Justin Ives replaces Hitoshi Ono in the second row while centre Yu Tamura and wing Kenki Fukuoka start.

Scotland's Vern Cotter: "We've prepared well for what will be a very tough Test against a powerful and fit Japanese team, who like to play a high-tempo game.

"Japan will have taken a lot of confidence from their opening win over South Africa. However, that doesn't change our approach to this game or the pool.

"The priority for us to ensure that we get our jobs right with accuracy, and impose ourselves on the game."

Japan's Eddie Jones: "If you look at Scotland's scoring profile they are very heavily a first-half scoring team. They get outscored consistently in the second half.

"We know we are a fit team so if we can stick with them in the first 30 minutes and we are in the game at half-time, we will run them off their feet. Are we fitter? Definitely."

"All the pressure is on Scotland. We can go in there free and easy, play our rugby, enjoy the rugby and that's what we intend to do. If we are good enough we'll win it, if we're not good enough we won't.

"We don't have any fears. We knew it was a four-day turnaround so we'll go into the game as well as we can and give it our best shot."

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