Scotland name Stuart Hogg captain for clash against USA
Stuart Hogg has played 60 Tests for Scotland
©PA
Scotland have named fullback Stuart Hogg for the upcoming clash against USA to be played in Houston on Saturday.
Head coach Gregor Townsend has made a total of 12 changes to the starting line-up from their win in the last weekend's game against Canada.
Scrum-half George Horne and number eight Matt Fagerson are set for debuts as they join their elder brothers Peter and Zander respectively while Jamie Bhatti, George Turner, Adam Hastings, Lewis Carmichael and Luke Hamilton will make their first starts.
The decision to appoint Hogg comes after Stuart McInally is yet to recover from his injury as Grant Gilchrist moves to the bench.
Among the 15 that played against Canada, only Ben Toolis, Byron McGuigan and Blair Kinghorn have retained their places.
"We always planned to play as much of the squad as possible on this tour and we also deliberately picked more Edinburgh players in the first game because their season finished earlier," said Townsend.
"Now we welcome most of the Glasgow Warriors contingent into the team. On top of that, there are seven players making their first starts for the country, which is really exciting, and we are looking forward to them going out and grabbing this opportunity.
"The USA have won their last six games and scored a lot of points in the process. They've beaten two teams that have already qualified for the Rugby World Cup - Uruguay and Russia - and put 60 points on both of them.
"They are definitely improving as a team and are playing with a lot of confidence.
"You can see in the way they attack and defend that they are well coached, added to which there are some exceptional individuals that offer running threats throughout their side, so this will be a real test for us on Saturday."
Scotland: Stuart Hogg (c), Blair Kinghorn, Nick Grigg, Pete Horne, Byron McGuigan, Adam Hastings, George Horne, Matt Fagerson, Luke Hamilton, Tim Swinson, Ben Toolis, Lewis Carmichael, Zander Fagerson, George Turner, Jamie Bhatti
Replacements: Fraser Brown, Allan Dell, Murray McCallum, Grant Gilchrist, David Denton, Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, Mark Bennett, Dougie Fife
