Scotland 25-13 Italy: Graham scores two tries in World Cup warm-up

A Scotland broadside missing respective cardinal players began their World Cup preparations with triumph implicit Italy.

Darcy Graham scored either broadside of the interruption and Josh Bayliss crossed astatine the death, with Ben Healy kicking 10 points astatine Murrayfield.

Monty Ioane crossed for Italy's lone effort successful a mostly scruffy affair.

Visiting fly-half Tommaso Allan added 8 points with the boot.

When these sides met successful March successful the last circular of the Six Nations, Italy gave the Scots an almighty scare, peppering the Scottish enactment for what would person been a match-winning effort earlier Blair Kinghorn's breakaway people successful the last play added immoderate gloss to the scoreline.

A torrential downpour earlier kick-off made for a scrappy opening 10 minutes, the item of which was possibly the show of a seagull connected the Murrayfield pitch, with the interloping vertebrate seemingly unperturbed arsenic play raged connected astir it.

Scotland passed up a mates of promising overlaps but a clever cross-field footwear from Healy, connected his archetypal Test start, acceptable up Graham to spell implicit for the opening score.

Italy took the antithetic decision, fixed this was fundamentally a pre-season friendly, to footwear astatine extremity alternatively than trial retired the Scottish defence successful pursuit of a try, Tommaso Allan bringing them backmost wrong 2 points.

Matt Fagerson and past George Turner enactment successful monstrous hits arsenic the Scots looked to find a spark, but determination was small bushed to the lucifer successful the archetypal fractional and Allan banged implicit a punishment from long-range to springiness the visitors the pb astatine the break.

Scotland came retired with renewed vigour astatine the commencement of the 2nd half, lone to spill the shot erstwhile presented with the accidental of a tap-penalty 5 metres from the Italian line.

It was possibly a reflection of the mode the crippled was going that the Scots elected to footwear their adjacent punishment astatine goal, Healy making nary mistake to regain the lead.

How Scotland could beryllium doing with different effort and erstwhile it came it was, astir inevitably, from that antheral Graham.

Some beardown midfield carries took the Scots heavy into Italian territory and, erstwhile the shot was recycled, Graham arrived similar a bid to portion consecutive done and nether the posts and instrumentality his Test tally to 18 tries successful 34 matches.

Any hopes that Scotland mightiness propulsion distant disappeared soon aft erstwhile Allan enactment Ioane implicit successful the country and the fly-half's superb touchline conversion brought the Azzurri backmost wrong two.

Healy's punishment eased Scottish nerves and substitute Bayliss ended the contention erstwhile helium ploughed implicit successful the country successful the last play.

Next up for the Scots are location and distant meetings with France. Head manager Gregor Townsend volition sanction stronger sides for those Tests, and performances volition request to amended importantly to vie with the World Cup hosts.

Line-ups

Scotland: O Smith, D Graham, C Harris, S McDowall, K Steyn, B Healy , A Price; R Sutherland, G Turner, M Walker, S Skinner, S Cummings, L Crosbie, R Darge (capt), M Fagerson.

Replacements: S McInally, J Bhatti, J Sebastian, C Henderson, J Bayliss , J Dobie, B Kinghorn, C Redpath.

Italy: L Pani; P Bruno, T Menoncello, L Morisi, M Ioane; T Allan, M Page-Relo; F Zani, E Faiva, P Ceccarelli, D Sisi, A Zambonin, F Ruzza (capt), M Zuliani, T Halafihi.

Replacements: M Manfredi, D Fischetti, F Alongi, E Iachizzi, L Cannone, A Garbisi, G Da Re, F Mori.

Referee: Ben O'Keeffe (New Zealand)

• Subscribe to the Rugby Union Weekly podcast
• Add rugby national alerts to your BBC Sport app