Scotland pick up positives from predictable defeat

When Stuart Grimes reported for duty last week he confessed he "didn't recognise" half of the Scotland squad. Unfortunately for the stand-in captain, the new-look Scotland suffered the same fate as the old guard at Murrayfield yesterday. With Grimes at the helm and a quintet of uncapped players in their starting XV, the Scots maintained their losing run on home ground. Leaking seven tries and 47 points, they slumped to their fifth successive Murrayfield defeat.

It was a qualified success of a failure, though. A year ago the Barbarians put 74 points and 12 tries past a less experimental Scotland side. There was also the glint of a hope or two for the future, too, from a Scotland side selected with next year's World Cup in mind as much as the summer trip to North America upon which Ian McGeechan embarks this afternoon with his experimental squad.

The starting line-up featured nine changes to the team that beat Wales 27-22 in Cardiff in April and five new faces: Mike Blair at scrum-half, Andy Craig at outside-centre, Rory Kerr on the right-wing, Craig Smith at loosehead prop and Allan Jacobsen at tighthead. Blair marked his first appearance with a try – one of three by the Scots – while Smith had his moments in the loose and Kerr showed his paces on several occasions.

It was a Scotland side boasting just 233 caps in total, 210 less than a Barbarians XV captained by Ian Jones, who made the first of his 79 appearances for the All Blacks against McGeechan's Grand-Slamming Caledonian Class of 1990. Not that the gulf in experience was immediately evident. Indeed, one of the new boys almost breached the Barbarians try-line with 50 seconds on the clock.

Kerr could hardly have come closer after taking a delightful inside pass from Duncan Hodge on halfway and launching a surging run through the middle. The Glasgow wing was just two metres from the line when Percy Montgomery lassoed him around the ankles from behind. To mild derision from the crowd, Brendan Laney kicked the penalty awarded for offside at the breakdown, but it was a backs-to-the-wall job for the Scots thereafter.

The Barbarians pummelled away at the home pack and broke through after 12 minutes, Kris Chesney diving over from three metres out. Try number two came from similar range, scored by Jim Williams, and on the half-hour Pita Alatini exposed a barn door defence on the Scottish left, running through from 40m.

Only then did Scotland get on the front-foot again. From a five-metre scrum on the right, Blair and Hodge fed the ball out to Laney and the man known as "Chainsaw" lived up to his nickname as he cut through the Barbarians back-line from inside-centre. The former New Zealand under- 21 international added the conversion, then departed for treatment to a head wound, leaving Hodge to kick a penalty that put the Scots back within seven points – until first-half injury time, that is, when Thinus Delport and Adrian Garvey combined to set up Josh Kronfeld for an easy score on the right.

That left Scotland 28-13 down at the break and the natives among the 35,646 crowd somewhat muted. Their mood was hardly lifted when Mark Robinson strolled over for the fifth Barbarians try 12 minutes into the second half but the trio of changes that followed stirred the Scots from their stupor. McGeechan introduced two more uncapped players –prop Joel Brannigan and flanker Allister Hogg, as well as hooker Steve Scott – and within a minute Scotland had their second try. It was a fine try, too, Smith slipping the ball to Blair just inside the Scottish half and the Edinburgh scrum-half racing clear through the middle.

Though Jones and Pieter Muller added to the try count against the Scots, Chris Paterson scored in the left corner in injury time to cut the final deficit to 20 points. With the introduction of the centre Marcus Di Rollo raising the tally of uncapped home players to eight, it was a respectable enough gap for the Scots.

Scotland: G Metcalfe (Glasgow); R Kerr (Glasgow), A Craig (Orrell), B Laney (Edinburgh), C Paterson (Edinburgh); D Hodge (Edinburgh), M Blair (Edinburgh); C Smith (Edinburgh), G Bulloch (Glasgow), A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), J White (Glasgow), S Grimes (Newcastle, capt), S Taylor (Edinburgh), M Leslie (Edinburgh), J Petrie (Glasgow).

Replacements: A Henderson (Glasgow) for Laney, 39-40, for Kerr, 70; S Scott (Borders) for Bulloch, 54; J Brannigan (Edinburgh) for Jacobsen, 54; A Hogg (Edinburgh) for Leslie, 54; N Hines (Edinburgh) for Petrie, 59; G Burns (Edinburgh) for Blair, 75.

Barbarians: P Montgomery (South Africa); T Delport (South Africa), P Muller (South Africa), P Alatini (New Zealand), P Rossouw (South Africa); B van Straaten (South Africa), M Robinson (New Zealand); C Dowd (New Zealand), M Ledesma (Argentina), M Reggiardo (Argentina), I Jones, (New Zealand, Capt), R Strudwick (London Irish), K Chesney (Saracens), J Kronfeld (New Zealand), J Williams (Australia).

Replacements: A Garvey (South Africa) for Reggiardo, 33; P Gustard (London Irish) for Chesney, 56; B Everitt (London Irish) for Van Straaten, 67; R Ibanez (France) for Ledesma, 70; O Tonu'u (New Zealand) for Robinson, 75; K Roche (Saracens) for Kronfeld, 77; L Botham (Newcastle) for Rossouw, 79.

Referee: T Spreadbury (England).