Scotland 15-16 Australia: Blair Kinghorn misses late kick as Scots come up just short

Blair Kinghorn missed a last-ditch penalty that would have won the game for Scotland.

Scotland's Ollie Smith crossed the tryline for the second time in his career, but the Aussies kicked the ball into the air.

Kinghorn's converted try and penalty put the Scots in front, but James Slipper's score and five more points from Foley gave the visitors the lead.

Kinghorn could not find the target on a last minute penalty that would have won the game for the home team.

Australia and France will play in Paris next week.

• Reaction & as it happened

The build-up to this autumn series was dominated by two calls, one to drop Finn Russell from his squad entirely and the other to give the captaincy to Jamie Ritchie.

Only Scottish-based players are allowed to play for this one because Russell and Hogg were not available.

Australia's search for consistency has been the same as Scotland's, but the hosts' first try brought an immediate reward.

The young full-back justified his decision to go alone by dancing his way to the tryline after Kinghorn delayed his pass to perfect to put Smith through a gap.

The man who broke Scottish hearts with a late penalty in the World Cup quarter-finals banged over a three-pointer to make it a one-point game.

The territory battle was won by Australia in the opening quarter, only for their progress to be halted by the skills of the rest of the team. The Australians were turned over four times when they were trying to get into the Scottish 22.

The Scots went for the corner after passing up three points. The Glasgow centre let the ball and the chance to score slip from his grasp when Kinghorn sent a beautiful long miss-pass towards Sione. The hosts tried to get a second try as Glen Young was held up over the line.

Andrew Kellaway looked like he was going to win the race to the loose ball, but Smith was still alive to the danger of sweeping up.

On the stroke of half-time, Foley made it one point in front for the Australians.

The crowd was brought to its feet when Scotland took the lead in the second half.

Mark Bennett hit the ball in the middle. Kinghorn hacked forward, showed great speed to beat the cover defence and score.

Kinghorn has been the focus of a lot of attention going into this series after Russell's omission.

A break from Duhan van der Merwe took the Scots to the edge of the Australia line, but Grant Gilchrist dropped the ball as he looked to score. The visitors were encouraged when Young was sin-binned for an illegal clearout.

Jack was introduced to us on the hour mark. The number eight in Glasgow is able to switch countries despite having won 14 caps for Australia.

Even though it was strange for him to take his Scotland bow against his countrymen, his mind would have snapped into gear pretty quickly as no sooner was he on the pitch than his old team-mates were crossing the whitewash, a period of sustained pressure finished off.

The match was not moving quickly. At the 70 minute mark, the penalty count had hit 26 - 14 of those against Scotland - the latest of which Foley fired over to edge the Australians in front.

Scotland was under pressure and had to find something.

The focus on Kinghorn in the build-up may have dictated the outcome of the game. The fly-half fluffed his lines and pulled his kick wide of the posts when his big moment was just around the corner.

The game was done. Scotland might have won the game. Rugby can be very physical.

'Blair should be proud of the way he played'

Blair missed one kick, but he had an excellent game. People make mistakes.

It shouldn't have come down to that because we had chances to win the game. I told him to be proud of his performance.

Scotland's head coach thinks they should win it. There have been opportunities for us. I was proud of how we played despite the fact that we were a man down.

In the first half, we were a bit too cautious. You need to be more than just safe when playing the top teams.

Sam Skinner, Grant Gilchrist, Pierre Schoeman, Dave Cherry, Duhan van der Merwe and Blair Kinghorn are all in the squad.

George Turner, Jamie Bhatti, WP Nel, Glen Young, Jack Dempsey, George Horne and Ross Thompson are replacements.

Australia: Banks, Kellaway, Ikitau, Paisami, Wright, and many more.

The replacements were Fainga'a, Tupou, Hanigan, and White.