{"id":85339,"date":"2025-11-23T12:17:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T16:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/scotland-crushes-tonga-56-0-van-der-merwe-leads-the-victory\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T12:17:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T16:17:37","slug":"scotland-crushes-tonga-56-0-van-der-merwe-leads-the-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/rugby\/scotland-crushes-tonga-56-0-van-der-merwe-leads-the-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland crushes Tonga 56-0: Van der Merwe leads the victory"},"content":{"rendered":"Duhan van der Merwe regained the lead in the Scotland&#8217;s top try scorer table, surpassing Darcy Graham, in a match where Gregor Townsend&#8217;s team defeated Tonga with a resounding score of 56-0. The match, which closed an autumn with ups and downs for the Scots, was characterized by the indiscipline of the Tongan team, which suffered several cards.\n\nThe Scotland series of matches focused on the results against New Zealand and Argentina. After consecutive defeats, the match against Tonga, ranked 19th in the world, gained relevance, especially to avoid another defeat.\n\nThe Scottish dominance was evident from the start. With 14 changes in the starting lineup compared to the match against Argentina, the home side took a 21-0 lead at halftime with tries from Jamie Ritchie, George Turner, and Max Williamson, all converted while Semisi Paea was serving a 20-minute red card.\n\nTonga suffered three more yellow cards before Van der Merwe scored his 35th try for Scotland, surpassing Graham, his Edinburgh teammate. Replacements Ewan Ashman and George Horne contributed doubles in the final quarter, extending the lead.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1123%2Fr1579534_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><figcaption>Tom Jordan celebra durante la victoria de Escocia sobre Tonga.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nThe visiting team struggled from the start. Tonga&#8217;s hopes were dashed when Paea received a yellow card in the fifth minute for a dangerous action. After a review, the infraction was deemed worthy of a 20-minute red card.\n\n<p>Scotland took advantage of Paea&#8217;s absence to score their first three tries. Ritchie, in his first appearance of the autumn, opened the scoring in the 10th minute. Turner, in his 50th match, scored a try after an assist from Ritchie. Williamson scored the third try in the 23rd minute. Fergus Burke converted all three.<\/p>\n\nTonga managed to stop the Scottish attack until the end of the first half, but Mataele received a yellow card for an intentional offside just before halftime.\n\nScotland, aware of its 21-0 advantage against Argentina in the previous match, sought to maintain control. Tonga&#8217;s indiscipline, with yellow cards for Taniela Filimone and Fine Inisi, hindered their comeback attempt.\n\nAfter a period of resistance, Van der Merwe scored Scotland&#8217;s fourth try in the 59th minute, thanks to Horne&#8217;s assistance. Ashman and Horne completed the score with doubles in the last quarter.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Duhan van der Merwe regained the lead in the Scotland&#8217;s top try scorer table, surpassing Darcy Graham, in a match where Gregor Townsend&#8217;s team defeated Tonga with a resounding score of 56-0. The match, which closed an autumn with ups and downs for the Scots, was characterized by the indiscipline of the Tongan team, which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[203,940,10596,10597],"class_list":{"0":"post-85339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-scotland","10":"tag-tonga","11":"tag-van-der-merwe"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}