By Mark Carruthers
Cameron Henderson and Ollie Smith will make their first Scotland appearances since 2023 when Gregor Townsend鈥檚 men kick off their summer tour of the Pacific with a meeting with the Maori All Blacks in the early hours of Saturday morning. With several players currently on tour with the British and Irish Lions in Australia, Townsend has taken the opportunity to shuffle his pack and assess a number of players throughout a three-match tour of the Pacific. Saturday鈥檚 clash with the Maori All Blacks will provide an intriguing opening to the summer as Scotland face a side that claimed an impressive win over Japan recently. Stafford McDowall will captain Scotland with scrum-half George Horne and back row Josh Bayliss acting as vice-captains. There could be two debutants from the bench after Alexander Masibaka and Fergus Burke were named amongst the replacements for a match Townsend believes will provide his squad with a testing physical challenge. He told the Scotland Rugby website: 鈥淭he guys get the first opportunity on tour to play. Some of the players in that squad, it鈥檚 the first time they鈥檒l wear a Scotland jersey. We are treating this like a test match, we know the Maori All Blacks played Japan last week, they鈥檙e a very good side and had a good win against a test side last week. We know that whoever gets the opportunity to play this weekend, it鈥檚 going into a test match environment. 鈥淭hey got better and better during the game. Japan started well and showed their quality playing at home but the more the Maori got into the game, the more possession they had, they showed they have dangerous runners, they had a cohesion about them as well, which is hard to achieve in those first couple of weeks together but we know we will be up against a tough team, it will be a physical game and I鈥檓 sure they鈥檒l want to move the ball to width and try and test our defence.鈥 Yes, although it鈥檒l be an early start for anyone wanting to watch what should be an intriguing contest. Sky Sports have confirmed they will broadcast the entire match live via their Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Action channels. Their coverage gets underway at 4.25am on Saturday morning, which is ten minutes before kick-off at the Semenoff Stadium in Whang膩rei. Forwards: 1. Nathan McBeth 2. Patrick Harrison 3. Fin Richardson 4. Marshall Sykes 5. Cameron Henderson 6. Josh Bayliss 7. Andy Onyeama-Christie 8. Ben Muncaster Backs 15. Ollie Smith 14. Harry Paterson 13. Rory Hutchinson 12. Stafford McDowall (C) 11. Arron Read 10. Adam Hastings 9. George Horne Replacements: 16. George Turner 17. Alec Hepburn 18. Will Hurd 19. Max Williamson 20. Gregor Brown 21. Alexander Masibaka 22. Fergus Burke 23. Jamie Dobie Your next Scotland Rugby read: Emotional Scotland star reflects on ‘dream’ British and Irish Lions call-up