Scotland have stuck six more tries on Georgia in a sloppy 36-9 win at Murrayfield on Friday in their last warmup match for the Rugby World Cup in Japan.
Scotland beat Georgia 44-10 last weekend in a far better performance in Tbilisi, where Scotland had the result in hand by halftime.
In this return match on Friday, Scotland took more than an hour to secure victory, and three tries in the last 12 minutes put gloss on an outing dotted with errors. Still, it was enough to keep Georgia away from the tryline.
“This week we weren’t as accurate,” Scotland coach Gregor Townsend said.
“It was pleasing that we did put things right later on … finishing with a couple of tries made it a nicer win than it probably was.”
More worrying for the home side, lock Ben Toolis went off at halftime, his replacement Jonny Gray lasted only a quarter before he left because of a head knock, and flanker Jamie Ritchie also took a head knock and was going to hospital for scans.
Fullback Blair Kinghorn starred in the first half, setting up wing Tommy Seymour who dropped the pass and bombed the first try chance. Instead, the opening try went moments later to scrumhalf Ali Price, who was set up by fellow backs Kinghorn, Darcy Graham and Duncan Taylor.
Kinghorn took the inside pass for the second try from an Adam Hastings chip to Graham, but Hastings couldn’t convert both.
Meanwhile, simple mistakes by Scotland gave penalty kicks to Georgia’s Tedo Abzhandadze and he landed three to help his side trail only 10-9 at the break.
Both teams were also down a man, after referee Romain Poite tired of the messy scrums and sin-binned opposing props Zander Fagerson and Mikheil Nariashvili.
After halftime, a Hastings break led to a Sam Johnson try.
Georgia wing Zurab Dzneladze was then yellow-carded but Scotland fell into farce and didn’t take advantage.
Georgia was tiring though, and bad defence allowed Graham and replacement backs George Horne and Pete Horne to score late tries.
Scotland opens its World Cup campaign against Ireland on September 22 in Yokohama, while Georgia meets Wales the next day in Toyota.
