Scotland reveal reasons for Sione Tuipulotu exit - but surprise player stays on tour

The centre is missing the final match against Uruguay to return home and rest after a long but highly successful season which saw him win the URC with Glasgow. Tuipulotu became a new father shortly before the tour and it was agreed that he could leave early to be with his partner Lara and new baby Tu’uhefohe.

Given that the game in Santiago was his 30th of the season, a break is long overdue for the player who has co-captained Scotland in the last two games and maintained his high standards in Saturday’s win in which the tourists overcame a tricky first quarter to run in eight tries.

“Sione is going to go back - that’s something we agreed a couple of weeks ago, just with the new family,” confirmed Gregor Townsend, the Scotland head coach. “So it was great that he was able to play on Saturday and captain the team, and finished the game having played well.”

Joining Tuipulotu on the plane home will be six other players, Josh Bayliss, Alex Craig, Will Hurd, Arron Reed, Dylan Richardson and Gus Warr. This Saturday’s game against Uruguay in Montevideo takes place outside the designated international window so Townsend will have to pick a team without his exiles, although one is remaining on the tour. Oyonnax have given permission for Ewan Johnson to remain and the second-row forward, who made his first Scotland start against Chile, will continue to train with the squad this week.

“Oyonnax have said that Ewan Johnson can stay with us and train,” said Townsend. “He might not be available to play, but it’s really helpful that they’ve said he can remain for another week with us. I thought he was excellent on Saturday.

“We’ve seen that with a number of players on their second caps. Some played really well on their first cap, but just the confidence of having that first cap and playing again - we have seen an improvement the longer they’ve been in our environment training. I thought Ewan was one of the standouts on Saturday, Will Hurd as well in the contact area.”

The departures of seven players combined with the five who went home after the second game against the United States means Townsend has been left with a Scotland squad of only 25 for the Uruguay game, 24 if Johnson is there for training purposes only. But there are three “development players” who have joined up with the group in South America and could be drafted into the match-day line-up in the event of injuries. Tighthead prop Fin Richardson, who has signed for Glasgow Warriors from Exeter, Glasgow scrum-half Ben Afshar and Edinburgh lock Rob Carmichael all have limited senior rugby experience but Townsend has been impressed by how they’ve integrated into training and would have no qualms about deploying them against Uruguay if required.

“Next week I think it’s going to be three tightheads, three looseheads, just two hookers and four second rows. So they’re just one injury away from getting called up,” said the coach as he explained how his squad resources had been thinned out.

While the opposition in the Americas has not been top tier, it has allowed Townsend to experiment with new players and move others around into different positions. Patrick Harrison, the 22-year-old Edinburgh hooker, became the 11th new Scotland cap on the tour on Saturday when he came off the bench and contributed to a vastly improved second half performance.

Scotland trailed to a Santiago Videla penalty until the 21st minute but got their noses in front through Josh Bayliss’ converted try. A penalty from Tomas Salas cut Scotland’s lead to a point but further converted tries from Kyle Rowe and Jamie Dobie had the visitors 21-6 up at half-time. The pair each scored again in the second half, along with Matt Currie, Dylan Richardson and Kyle Steyn, as the Scots moved clear despite Diego Escobar’s counter for Chile.

Townsend praised his replacements for helping Scotland dominate after the break but admitted the first 20 minutes had been tough.

“There were a few reasons,” he said. “They played well early on and were very physical. It was a narrow pitch, a lot narrower than we were expecting - I think it was only about 64 metres wide. And probably the biggest factor was the new team. We tried to work the first two games giving two weeks of coaching and training with those two teams. This team only really came together on Tuesday, so they started to gel the more the game went on and that was pleasing in the second half, and I thought the bench did really well, really upped the pace when they came on.”

Townsend felt Scotland’s finishing could have been better, particularly in the first half, and he warned that Uruguay will present the toughest test of a tour that has already seen Scotland score 25 tries and 167 points in three games against Canada, the US and Chile.

“It will be a massive game for them,” Townsend said of Uruguay who ran France close at last year’s World Cup before beating Namibia in Pool A. “They’ve played France and Argentina now, and although they’ve lost those games, they’ve had two Test matches against teams in the top ten in the world and they’ve got another one on Saturday against us.

“I think that was always going to be the toughest game. We’ll obviously have to play them with our home-based players, but we have a strong group here, some experienced players, some players that are in single figures in caps but we believe we’ll have a strong team to finish the tour on a high.”

Scorers: Chile: Tries: D Escobar. Pens: S Videla, Salas. Scotland: Tries: Bayliss, Rowe 2, Dobie 2, Currie, Richardson, Steyn. Cons: Healy 3, Hastings 3.

Chile: D Warnken; C Game, D Saavedra, S Videla, N Garafulic; T Salas, L Berti; J Carrasco, A Bohme, M Dittus, C Saavedra, J Eissmann, M Sigren, R Martínez, A Escobar.

Replacements: D Escobar, S Lues, I Gurruchaga, S Pedrero, J Milesi, M Torrealba, B Videla, J Ignacio Larenas.

Scotland: K Rowe; J Dobie, K Steyn, S Tuipulotu (S McDowall 57), A Reed; B Healy (A Hastings 56), G Warr (M Currie 56); N McBeth (J Sebastian 56), D Richardson, W Hurd (P Schoeman 56), A Craig (P Harrison 46), E Johnson, G Brown (M Williamson 59), J Ritchie (R Darge 72), J Bayliss.

Referee: Mathieu Raynal (FFR).

Attendance: 24,000.