Shade is the only bright spot for Glasgow rugby

Greenyards a week on Saturday. His one previous game at that level was

in the 18-12 victory in the corresponding match last season in

Chalon-sur-Saone, the Scots' third successive away win in the series

with the French.

Glasgow rugby, however, has not done at all well in the selection.

Munro is the only representative. Three district colleagues, Crawford

McGuffie, Graeme MacGregor, and George Graham have gone from the team

who beat the Italians by

26-3 in L'Aquila two months ago, though it is consolation for Glasgow

that Richie Dixon, the district's coach, will again be in charge of the

B team.

For the Melrose match he has been given a much recast XV. Seven remain

from December, but only Marshall Wright and the Richardson brothers will

wear the numbers they had then.

Four changes have been enforced by the elevation of Craig Chalmers,

Chris Gray, Kenneth Milne, and Paul Burnell to the full national XV, and

the same number have succumbed to the selectors' axe. As with the

deposed Glasgow trio, Rob Wainwright has been dropped, though he at

least is among the replacements.

Ruari Maclean and David Milne, like Munro, return to the team, and

five others are newcomers. David Shiel and Julian Scott strike up a new

half-back partnership, and Peter Wright, the Edinburgh under-21 captain

from Boroughmuir, will make his debut in the pack, as will Jim Hay,

Hawick's hooker, and Adam Buchanan-Smith, the London Scottish flanker.

Lindsay Renwick and Derek Stark have swopped wings. Bob Munro,

convener of the selection committee said yesterday that he and his

colleague could see a future for each wing on the other flank.

Elsewhere, Maclean's return allows Brian Edwards to play specifically

as outside centre rather than nominally inside, as he was in Italy, and

Kevin Rafferty also has made a technical switch on the scrummage flank.

The more explosive Buchanan-Smith is now the other wing forward instead

of Wainwright.

In addition, the captaincy has changed hands from Renwick to Charlie

Richardson, though the reason has been only that the former has recently

been recovering from an Achilles tendon injury. He returned to rugby on

Saturday, playing for the London Scottish third XV, and as Bob Munro

observed, it was only fair in the circumstances to relieve Renwick of

pressure.

Richardson led Scotland B to a 9-0 victory in the 1985 match against

the Italians, but he lost more than the captaincy for the season's

subsequent match against the French. He was removed from the team, and

though the Anglo-Scots relieved him of command earlier this season he

has, according to news from over the Border, been providing London

Scottish with a lively lead.

Marshall Wright, like Renwick, has recently been out of rugby. The

Kelso full back has not played since his shoulder injury in the league

match against Hawick four weeks ago, but the selectors, the convener

said, are satisfied with his fitness.

Wright's namesake, Peter, who was 21 two months ago, is the youngest

of the five newcomers and Scott the oldest at 26. The others are 24.

Each one of the five will be delighted with selection, though none can

be more relieved than Scott now that his agonising apprenticeship is

over. The Stewart's Melville captain has been reserve to four Scotland B

scrum halves in the past three years.

Shiel had been a Melrose regular for long enough before this season's

move to Jed that he might have been thought to be older than 24. He was,

however, a schools cap eight years ago, and he was only 17 when, in

1981, playing for Melrose against Langholm, he set what has been claimed

as a world record with five drop goals in one match.

Milne, the senior member of the team at 30, comes back for what has

become his regular game against France B. It will be his fifth match at

this level, his fourth against the French, and in the selectors' eyes

his experience obviously has its worth for all that he is uncapped,

unlike his brothers, Iain and Kenneth. The team is:

M Wright (Kelso); D A Stark (Ayr),

B Edwards (Boroughmuir), R R W Maclean (Gloucester), W L Renwick

(London Scottish); D K Shiel (Jed-Forest), J M Scott (Stewart's Melville

FP); D F Milne (Heriot's FP), J A Hay (Hawick), P H Wright (Borougmuir),

D S Munro (Glasgow High/Kelvinside), J F Richardson (Edinburgh

Academicals), G E A Buchanan-Smith, C B S Richardson, captain, (both

London Scottish), K P Rafferty (Heriot's FP). Replacements -- I J Ramsey

(Melrose), T J Exeter (London Scottish), S Jardine (South Glamorgan

Institute), R I Wainwright (Edinburgh Academicals), D J D Buthcer

(London Scottish), J G Runciman (Melrose).

Referee -- B W Stirling (Ireland).