Watch every second of the 2026 Nations Championship live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nBut Scotland stormed back in the second half to avoid a major embarrassment at Murrayfield, clinching a bonus-point win.<\/p>\n
Dobie scored two tries after the break to spark Scotland’s revival, while fellow replacements Pierre Schoeman and Scott Cummings also crossed over.<\/p>\n
The Scots’ escape act secured their second win from three matches in the new tournament.<\/p>\n
They defeated Argentina 47-38 in their opener before losing 42-28 in South Africa last weekend.<\/p>\n
Scotland will resume their Nations Championship campaign in November with matches against New Zealand, Australia and Japan.<\/p>\n
“Fiji played really well, we knew they would, I felt they picked their strongest side today and it took a lot of work for us to break them down,” Townsend said.<\/p>\n
“We changed the team. That was always the plan. We want to build more depth.<\/p>\n
“I thought our bench did really well. Something I’ve learnt over the last 12 months, the bench can help you change momentum.”<\/p>\n
Townsend’s decision to make 14 changes looked like coming back to bite him as Fiji dominated the first half.<\/p>\n
Jonny Gray’s close-range try and George Horne’s conversion gave Scotland an early lead, but Fiji were unfazed.<\/p>\n
Tevita Ikanivere touched down following a maul to cap an immediate response from Fiji, who struck again through Selestino Ravutaumada’s sensational effort.<\/p>\n
Taking possession wide on the flank, Ravutaumada kicked ahead and recovered the ball before racing away to score.<\/p>\n
Elia Canakaivata pounced on the loose ball after a break down and jumped over the line for another Fiji try, with Isaiah Armstrong-Ravula adding the conversion.<\/p>\n
But Scotland were revived by Townsend’s switches in the second half.<\/p>\n
Playing with renewed intensity, they battered Fiji into submission as the visitors gradually faded.<\/p>\n
“Fiji didn’t really break us that often, in that final quarter the guys were outstanding. We’ll take a few positives from that,” Townsend added.<\/p>\n
“We delivered against Argentina, we created a lot against the Boks. We can go into the break now with a positive campaign behind us.”<\/p>\n
Scotland captain Stafford McDowall saluted the fightback, saying: “I’m really proud of the boys. We got loose and let Fiji into the game but we responded and the bench had a really big impact.<\/p>\n
“We had to stick to what we have done all year. It was a good sign to see those lads coming on in the second half. I am off to be a groomsman at a wedding now!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scotland survived a scare from Fiji as Jamie Dobie came off the bench to inspire a 33-17 victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1097194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,33405,4884,228523,712,16,15],"class_list":["post-1097193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scotland","tag-britain","tag-fiji","tag-great-britain","tag-nations-championship","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116942037738390065","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1097193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1097194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1097193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1097193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1097193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}