American Shakur Stevenson retained his WBC lightweight title with an underwhelming points victory over Artem Harutyunyan in New Jersey.

Stevenson, 27, outclassed his Armenian opponent in a bout he was always comfortable in.

He was awarded the victory with the judges scoring the fight 119-109, 118-110 and 116-112 in his favour.

At the end of the fight there were some boos from the crowd but Stevenson defended his performance, saying “It’s kind of hard to prove it if you don’t got a fighter trying to fight back”.

Speaking to ESPN he added: “I want to fight the best fighters.

“That’s how you’re going to get to see the best version of me, when you put me in the ring with somebody else that wants to fight back and compete.”

Stevenson, who has previously been featherweight and super-featherweight champion, remains unbeaten since his professional debut in 2017.

There were five debutants in Townsend’s starting XV – and five more came off the bench – with Scotland’s head coach looking to provide opportunities to some of the younger and less experienced members of his set-up.

However, they struggled to gel in the opening 10 minutes. The hosts went through several phases in Scotland territory before Rumball went over at the back of a rolling maul.

Going behind sparked Scotland into life though, and their first real spell of possession saw them hit back.

After a dart down the short side, Paterson threw a delightful offload to the supporting Bayliss and the number eight had an unopposed route to the line.

Richardson was the beneficiary of more good work from Paterson for his first international try, before the South African-born hooker dotted down at the back of a powerful maul for his second.

Paterson was once again the provider for Scotland’s fourth try of the game, a wonderful offload putting Reed in at the corner.

The Scottish momentum continued in the second half, with Canada unable to stem the flow of tries. While Townsend’s young side lacked discipline at times, they played with a real freedom and verve in attack.

Warr scored twice either side of Kyle Baillie’s close-range effort for Canada, before Paterson went over for a richly deserved try of his own.

Glasgow scrum-half Dobie, playing on the wing, cruised under the posts, and his club team-mate McDowall’s try took Scotland past the 60-point mark.

It was left to Steyn to finish the scoring with the final play of the game, his 12th Scotland try.