There were Stirling connections everywhere at Murrayfield as Scotland wrapped up their Autumn Nations Series campaign with a win over Australia.
The Scots prevailed over the Wallabies by a score of 27-13 thanks in no small part to a confident second-half display after the sides had enjoyed a tight opening 40 where the home side were in front 7-3.
But they cut loose after the break, with Bridge of Allan star fly-half Finn Russell running the show – including crossing the whitewash for a sumptuous team try as he claimed 14 points for his ever-growing personal tally on the afternoon.
Meanwhile, second-rower and former Stirling County player Grant Gilchrist was also a big factor for the hosts, proving a pest all afternoon for the Aussie line-out, as well as some impressive carries in the loose.
Sunday’s win was a fine win to round off an autumn campaign which has seen three wins and only a single defeat – which came at the hands of world champions South Africa.
Despite the important win – which set the Scots up for the start of their Six Nations campaign early in the New Year – Scotland skipper Sione Tuipulotu said there was still much progress to be made in the team’s display.
Tuipulotu said after the game: “We’re really happy with that win, but I think the scary thing for this group is that’s probably just a six or seven out of ten performance against a pretty good team.
“We’re the only ones on the training ground. We’re the only ones who see what we can pull off.
“It’s just about cleaning up the few errors that we had in that game. I actually think that scoreline could have been a lot bigger. We made a lot of errors on our set-piece and stuff like that when we were clean through.
“Throughout the week, we were pretty confident that we were a better team than this Wallaby team.
“I’m not too sure if it’s an upset or something like that or how the media views it, but we were very confident that we were going to be the better team. It’s a good win, but I don’t think it’s the best win or anything .”
Alongside the Sunday win, Scotland’s ‘A’ squad also secured a victory over Chile in Edinburgh on Friday evening.
The Stirling links were also present in that match, with veteran prop Jamie Bhatti starting in the Scottish front-row for the 19-17 win. Elsewhere, former Stirling Wolves players Jare Oguntibeju and Ben Afshar also made appearances from the bench in the match.