BOTH Greig Laidlaw from Jedburgh and Hawick's Stuart Hogg have retained their places in Vern Cotter's Scotland team to face Ireland on Saturday.

And Kelso's Ross Ford is expected to earn his 103rd cap from the bench at a sold out Murrayfield.

Cotter has named three changes to start Scotland’s opening RBS 6 Nations.

Stormers centre Huw Jones is back in the starting line-up in place of Mark Bennett, having recovered from the foot injury that ruled him out of the team’s third and final autumn test match against Georgia in November.

Jones will reform the midfield partnership he forged with former Selkirk player Alex Dunbar in between returning half backs Laidlaw and Finn Russell, and the back-three trio of Hogg, Sean Maitland and Tommy Seymour.

The remaining changes are in the pack which sees Glasgow Warriors hooker Fraser Brown promoted from the bench in place of cap centurion Ford and Josh Strauss replace clubmate Rob Harley.

Cotter said: “Although it’s a reasonably settled squad, it’s nice to have an uncapped player and some reasonably new players in the team, who bring their enthusiasm along with the others.

“We’ve been growing our depth and our versatility within that, so we have a number of different options that allow us to continually attack the opposition, which is our main focus.

“Facing Ireland first up doesn’t get much harder.

“They are at the top of their game and will come here with confidence after beating some of the best teams in the world, including the All Blacks and Wallabies and having won the tournament twice in the past three years.”

Saturday's match against Ireland kicks off at 2.25pm.

15. Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors)

14. Sean Maitland (Saracens)

13. Huw Jones (Stormers)

12. Alex Dunbar (Glasgow Warriors)

11. Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors)

10. Finn Russell (Glasgow Warriors)

9. Greig Laidlaw (Gloucester)

1. Allan Dell (Edinburgh Rugby)

2. Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors)

3. Zander Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors)

4. Richie Gray (Toulouse)

5. Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors)

6. Ryan Wilson (Glasgow Warriors)

7. Hamish Watson (Edinburgh Rugby)

8. Josh Strauss (Glasgow Warriors)

Substitutes: 16. Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby)

17. Gordon Reid (Glasgow Warriors)

18. Simon Berghan (Edinburgh Rugby)

19. Tim Swinson (Glasgow Warriors)

20. John Barclay (Scarlets)

21. Ali Price (Glasgow Warriors)

22. Duncan Weir (Edinburgh Rugby)

23. Mark Bennett (Glasgow Warriors)