Robinson rings the changes for Italy warm-up

Scotland have made 14 changes for Saturday’s final World Cup warm-up match against Italy – with Graeme Morrison the sole survivor in the starting XV from the win over Ireland.

Alastair Kellock returns to the starting line-up as captain for the EMC Test with the Azzurri at Murrayfield.

The match represents the final opportunity for head coach Andy Robinson to select his 30-man World Cup squad, which will be announced on Monday.

The head coach said: “We have made 14 changes from the team that started against Ireland as we want to give those players who have been working very hard in training the opportunity to put that into practice in Saturday’s Test match against Italy.

“Historically Scotland have found Italy very tough opponents and it was no surprise to us that they achieved one of the results of the RBS 6 Nations Championship earlier this year when they accounted for France in Rome.”

Scotland team to play Italy at Murrayfield on Saturday, August 20 (kick-off 5pm):

R Lamont (Toulon); M Evans (Castres), N De Luca (Edinburgh), G Morrison (Glasgow Warriors), S Danielli (Ulster); D Parks (Cardiff Blues), M Blair (Edinburgh); A Dickinson (Sale Sharks), S Lawson (Gloucester), M Low (Glasgow Warriors), N Hines (Clermont Ferrand), A Kellock (capt, Glasgow Warriors), K Brown (Saracens), R Vernon (Sale Sharks), J Barclay (Glasgow Warriors).

Replacements: D Hall (Glasgow Warriors), E Murray (Newcastle), R Gray (Glasgow Warriors), R Rennie (Edinburgh), C Cusiter (Glasgow Warriors), R Jackson (Glasgow Warriors), N Walker (Ospreys).