Scotland's new record try scorer praises teammate who made it happen as Stuart Hogg record broken

Rowe chose to find his fellow winger rather than going for the line himself in the first half of Saturday night’s victory in Uruguay. Van der Merwe did the rest, powering down the line for the last 10 metres to score his 28th try in just 41 appearances.

That took him one ahead of Stuart Hogg at the top of the table, something van der Merwe had in his thoughts ahead of this four-match Americas tour.

The South African-born back – who made his debut for Scotland in October 2020 – admits breaking the record against Uruguay got "the monkey off my back” and hoped he could go on to accumulate many more tries in the years ahead.

He said: “I’m absolutely buzzing. Kyle Rowe made it easy for me to be honest. He had a walk-in but just gave it to me and it just shows what a good relationship we have in this group. Going one ahead of Hoggy is pretty special and hopefully there’s a lot more to come.

“I’ve never really chased [the record]. But when it got to the point [when I had] 23 or 24 you go into a game hoping to score. Coming on this tour I was hoping to break the record. At least I’ve managed to do that now. The monkey is off my back now so I can just go out and enjoy myself and play.”

Scotland found it difficult at times against Uruguay and at one point looked to be staring down the barrel at a shock defeat before recovering late in the contest to rack up another victory.

“[It was a] bit scrappy,” admitted van der Merwe. “Fair play to them [Uruguay]. I thought they were physical and very good at the breakdown. We just weren’t good enough in the first half. Came out in the second half, we spoke about being better and more disciplined. We held on to the ball a wee bit more and managed to get some points on the board.”