KEY POINTS:
Australia 44 Scotland 15
EDINBURGH - The Wallabies ended their tumultuous rugby tour of Europe on a high today with an emphatic 44-15 victory over Scotland at Murrayfield.
The Wallabies ran in five tries to two to finish the tour with two wins, a draw and a
loss from their four tests.
After trailing 10-0 early, two ties to winger Mark Gerrard, further five-pointers from first five-eighth and man-of-the-match Stephen Larkham, hooker Stephen Moore and fullback Chris Latham, and seven goals from as many attempts from skipper Stirling Mortlock extended the Wallabies' dominance over Scotland to 24 years.
Scotland made a dream start, racing to a 10-0 lead after just seven minutes.
Fullback and captain Chris Paterson slotted an early penalty before winger Simon Webster made the Wallabies outside backs look silly when he beat three to score four minutes later.
Australian fullback Chris Latham spilt a bomb on the Wallabies 22 and Scotland swiftly spread the ball left to Webster, who stepped inside Latham and then wrong-footed wingers Lote Tuqiri and Mark Gerrard with another big left-foot step to score next to the posts.
Paterson's conversion gave the home team a useful head start.
But the Wallabies regrouped and dominated the remainder of the half, with skipper Stirling Mortlock opening Australia's account with a penalty goal after 12 minutes.
Larkham grabbed Australia's only try of the half when, from close range, he dummied and wriggled free of Marcus Di Rollo's tackle to touch down in the 17th minute.
Mortlock's conversion levelled the scores at 10-10.
With Latham much more heavily involved in the attack and the forwards managing to recycle the ball to attack for multiple phases, the Wallabies threatened to break through on several more occasions.
They couldn't, but twice the besieged Scots infringed to allow Mortlock to add another two penalties to put the Wallabies 16-10 up at halftime.
Australia needed just 10 minutes after the break to put Scotland to the sword with two converted tries to winger Mark Gerrard.
The Wallabies capitalised on another surging run from Latham before attacking on the right, where busy flanker Rocky Elsom threw the final pass to Gerrard, who dived over in the corner.
Gerrard was in again six minutes later when, after a powerful run from Mortlock, Larkham dummied and sliced through the defence before putting his winger over.
After conceding 30 points in 40 minutes, Scotland struck back with a well-worked try to winger Sean Lamont.
From a scrum win inside the Wallabies quarter, Scotland's Australia-born first five-eighth Dan Parks produced a crossfield kick for his winger, which Lote Tuqiri misjudged and then stumbled to allow Lamont an easy collect five metres out from the line.
But further tries to Moore and then Latham in the dying stages completed the rout.
- AAP
