Van der Merwe record as Scotland survive scare to beat Uruguay

Both sides went into the game short of full strength, with Scotland fielding a side almost exclusively of Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors players, while the hosts had lost some top performers to their Olympic Sevens squad.

It was Uruguay, smarting from last weekend’s heavy loss to Argentina, who came out the blocks the faster.

They should have made early pressure tell, but fly-half Felipe Etcheverry pushed his penalty wide from a very kickable position.

The Scots made them pay almost immediately after Ben Healy’s monster kick from his own 22 took his side deep into the home half.

With his second touch within the resulting rolling maul, Ashman dived over, with Healy adding the extras off the tee.

Uruguay suffered a quickfire triple blow as Juan Bautista Hontou was forced out of the game with a knee injury, Diego Arbelo was sent to the sin bin and Matt Fagerson put flanker Crosbie through for Scotland’s second try.

Healy knocked over a simple conversion and Van der Merwe was soon nestling in the corner for his record-breaking try – the winger moving one ahead of Stuart Hogg after just 41 caps.

A loose Healy pass and Uruguay were back in the game as Alvarez cruised in under the posts before Etcheverry went over from close range and added his second conversion to reduce the arrears to 19-14 by the break.

Diana burrowed over to draw the hosts level and only the latest of a series of missed kicks from Etcheverry prevented Uruguay taking a surprise lead.

That spurred Scotland into action and suddenly, behind rolling mauls, Harrison, with his first international try in his second appearance, and Schoeman went over and Healy added the conversions to restore the daylight.

That was enough to add to victories over Canada, United States and Chile at the end of a long hard season against a side who have now lose six of their latest seven outings.

Uruguay: I Alvarez, Bautista Hontou, Alonso, Inciarte, Freitas, Etcheverry, S Alvarez, Peculo, Pujadas, Arbelo, Aliaga, Leindekar Virginio, Ardao, Bianchi, Deus.

Replacements: Gini for Bautista Hontou (20). Not Used: Myszka, Sanguinetti, Piussi, Magno, Civetta, Diana, Suarez. Sin Bin: Arbelo (23).

Scotland: Paterson, Rowe, Jones, McDowall, Van Der Merwe, Healy, Horne, Sutherland, Ashman, Sebastian, Williamson, G. Brown, Crosbie, Darge, M. Fagerson.

Replacements: Steyn for Rowe (54), Hastings for Healy (54), Dobie for Horne (62), Schoeman for Sutherland (54), Harrison for Ashman (62), Walker for Sebastian (54), Johnson for G. Brown (69), Ritchie for Crosbie (62).