Sione Tuipulotu says Scotland were always ‘very confident’ of beating Wallabies

Bullish captain Sione Tuipulotu insisted Scotland always knew they would end Australia’s autumn resurgence after they cruised to a 27-13 triumph over the nation of his birth.

The Wallabies arrived in Edinburgh buoyed by wins over England and Wales this month, but they were brought crashing back to earth at Murrayfield by an experienced home side who went up through the gears in a dominant second half.

Australia-born Tuipulotu scored the first of the Scots’ four tries before the break, with Duhan van der Merwe, Josh Bayliss and Finn Russell crossing the whitewash after the break as the hosts eased into a commanding 27-6 lead before Harry Potter’s late consolation for the visitors.

“The feeling throughout the week is we were pretty confident that we’re a better team than this Wallabies team,” he said. “I’m not too sure if it’s an upset, or how the media views it, but we were very confident that we were going to be the better team today.

“It’s a good win, but I don’t think it’s the best win or anything. The way we themed the week is we didn’t really feel like they had played a defensive team like us, and we also didn’t feel like they had played an attacking team like us.

“We were very confident during the week. We knew they were going to come in with confidence as well, but we knew once we got into the game that we could make them feel pretty uncomfortable, with our defence especially.”

Tuipulotu felt Scotland let Australia off the hook and should have won more convincingly as they ended their autumn campaign with three wins and a spirited defeat by South Africa from their four Tests.

“I think the scary thing for this group is that that’s probably just a six or seven out of ten performance against a pretty good team,” he