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Stuart Hogg to captain Scotland against USA

Matt Fagerson and George Horne to make international debuts for Scotland on Saturday

Stuart Hogg will captain Scotland against the USA
Image: Stuart Hogg starts at full-back against the USA

Stuart Hogg will captain Scotland for the first time when they take on USA in Houston on Saturday.

Head coach Gregor Townsend has named a revamped starting XV following last weekend's 48-10 win over Canada - with seven players set to win their first caps.

Hogg's Glasgow team-mates Matt Fagerson and George Horne will make their international debuts alongside their elder brothers, with back-row Fagerson joined by prop Zander and scrum-half Horne lining-up alongside inside centre Pete.

There will also be debuts for the Glasgow trio Jamie Bhatti, George Turner and Adam Hastings, as well as Edinburgh's Lewis Carmichael and Luke Hamilton.

George Horne will start at scrum-half for Scotland
Image: George Horne will start at scrum-half for Scotland

Townsend - who has changed all but three of the side that thrashed the Canadians in Edmonton last weekend - said: "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.

"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.

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"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."

The Edinburgh pair of Ben Toolis and Blair Kinghorn, as well as Sale wing Byron McGuigan, are the only players to retain their places at the home of MLS outfit Houston Dynamos.

Saturday's match will be only the eighth time in close to 700 Scotland Tests when two sets of brothers have been on the field at the same time.

Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg (C), 14 Blair Kinghorn, 13 Nick Grigg, 12 Pete Horne, 11 Byron McGuigan, 10 Adam Hastings, 9 George Horne; 1 Jamie Bhatti, 2 George Turner, 3 Zander Fagerson, 4 Lewis Carmichael, 5 Ben Toolis, 6 Tim Swinson, 7 Luke Hamilton, 8 Matt Fagerson

Substitutes: 16 Fraser Brown, 17 Allan Dell, 18 Murray McCallum, 19 Grant Gilchrist, 20 David Denton, 21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 22 Mark Bennett, 23 Dougie Fife

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