Scots replace Petrie with Penguin Peters
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Your support makes all the difference.Scotland have arrived in the United States for the second leg of their short North American tour with yet more injury woes.
The No 8 John Petrie has been ruled out of the rest of the tour with a concussion suffered in the Test defeat to Canada on Saturday. Petrie will be out of action for the mandatory three weeks.
His replacement is a former Scottish captain, Eric Peters. He has been capped 29 times by Scotland, the last of which was in 1999. He was already in America playing with an invitational touring side called the Penguins.
The Penguins were in New York at the weekend for a match against a US Super League team, the New York Athletic Club. Peters flew to San Francisco on Sunday night to join the Scottish tour party.
The concussion to Petrie is the latest in a series of injuries that have plagued the Scots on this trip. He is the seventh player to be added to a growing list for a squad without several of their original selection even before they left Scotland, and then losing Martin Leslie in the opening game.
As a result, the coach Ian McGeechan has been mixing and matching his line-ups with one eye on this tour, and the other looking ahead to next year's World Cup.
The tourists are regrouping after their surprise 26-23 loss to Canada, and according to Scotland's media manager Graham Law the defeat has made them even more determined to do well on the American leg of the tour.
"The result on Saturday was a huge disappointment," said Law. "Canada upped their effort from last week and were extremely physical. The guys are determined to set the record straight next Saturday."
The Scots are preparing for two games in the US, both on the west coast. They will play the United States A team in Portland, Oregon, tonight, before a one-off Test match against the US Eagles on Saturday in San Francisco. This will be the first time the Scots have awarded full caps for a game against the Americans.
The last time the two teams met was in November 2000, when the Scots beat the Eagles 53-6 at Murrayfield, but the Americans have moved ahead in leaps and bounds since then and it is doubtful that there will be a similar score this time.
Elsewhere, with French pride damaged, their stalwart flanker Oliver Magne believes it can only be restored by defeating the reigning world champions Australia on Saturday.
France, the Six Nations champions, slumped to a 28-27 defeat against the Argentinian Pumas in Buenos Aires at the weekend, the opening Test of their southern hemisphere tour. The veteran Magne believes some of his team-mates put in half-hearted displays.
"An international match is an important event, and we have to give all we have," Magne said. "That was not the case against Argentina."
Magne sees Saturday's international at Melbourne's Colonial Stadium, the first of two against the Aussies, as an opportunity for the French to redeem themselves.
"This will be the moment of truth," he said. "We'll see if we have the guts to bounce back."
France's second Test against the Wallabies will be played at Sydney's Stadium Australia on 29 June.
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