Scotland have made four changes to their starting line-up ahead of their Six Nations second-round match against Ireland at Murrayfield.
Head coach Gregor Townsend has included last year’s top try-scoring Saracens wing Sean Maitland, who has recovered from a hamstring injury to replace last weekend’s hat-trick try-scorer Blair Kinghorn, who is benched.
Maitland will form a back-three with fellow British & Irish Lions Tommy Seymour and Stuart Hogg. The trio have a combined 150 caps and 49 tries for Scotland, and Feb. 9. marks their 18th Scotland test start as a back-three.
Elsewhere, prop Simon Berghan and back-row Josh Strauss come in for forwards Willem Nel and Sam Skinner, who are nursing calf and ankle injuries, respectively. Jonny Gray’s recovery from a shoulder injury sees him start ahead of second-row Ben Toolis, who will be a replacement.
Townsend said: “We picked up two injuries from last week with WP [Nel] and Sam [Skinner] missing out, which is disappointing for us and them, but have had a boost with a number of proven test players returning from injury and available to us this week.”
Scotland team to face Ireland
15. Stuart Hogg, 14. Tommy Seymour, 13. Huw Jones, 12. Sam Johnson, 11. Sean Maitland, 10. Finn Russell, 9. Greig Laidlaw (c), 1. Allan Dell, 2. Stuart McInally, 3. Simon Berghan, 4. Grant Gilchrist, 5. Jonny Gray, 6. Ryan Wilson, 7. Jamie Ritchie, 8. Josh Strauss
Replacements:
16. Fraser Brown, 17. Jamie Bhatti, 18. D’arcy Rae, 19. Ben Toolis, 20. Rob Harley, 21. Ali Price, 22. Pete Horne, 23. Blair Kinghorn.