Scott Johnson has mounted a stirring defence of his players' physicality ahead of tomorrow's Castle Lager Series match with South Africa in Nelspruit, rubbishing suggestions they were bullied out of the match in last weekend's 27-17 defeat by Samoa.
"Our players are not soft," said the Scotland head coach defiantly. "We were up against a physical side on a fast deck, but a lot of our boys hadn't played for a long time and people forget that. But there's certainly not a lack of character or anything like that and they're not soft. There's plenty of will there."
Johnson was speaking after naming three uncapped players in his line-up to face the Springboks in the Mbombela Stadium, the same number as were given starting debuts last weekend. As another three new caps were introduced from the bench in that match, Scotland's tally of international players will have grown by nine by the end of this tour.
The three to face South Africa are full-back Peter Murchie, winger Tommy Seymour and lock Tim Swinson, all of Glasgow Warriors. Aged 27, 24 and 26 respectively, the trio is relatively mature to be making international entrances. Intriguingly, none is the product of the Scottish rugby system, Seymour having grown up in Ireland and the USA, and Swinson and Murchie having learned the game in England.
The raft of new caps – equalling the nine awarded on Scotland's two-Test trip to North America in 2002 – is partly the result of Johnson's desire to experiment, but also the product of the heavy injury toll the squad suffered in the Samoa game as three players were ruled out.
"I can't question the attitude of the players," Johnson stressed. "We're sore. We're bumped and bruised. I've never seen an injury toll like that. I half-expected the referee to come in injured as well. It's amazing. It shows it was a physical encounter and we've lost quite a few and our depth has been tested."
"As I've said all along we need to make sure our base is broadened and some diamonds will come out of this tour
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article