WITHIN 24 hours of announcing the team to play the USA today, Scotland have been forced into changes. John Hardie, who was controversially the only openside flanker in the World Cup squad, has been ruled out after failing a concussion test.
This is where the decision to leave out the likes of Blair Cowan and John Barclay, who would have slotted in as like-for-like replacements, has its effect. While Ryan Wilson, who moves off the bench to take over Hardie’s position, is perfectly capable of playing there – he did it in the Guinness PRO12 final, after all – the absence of additional cover is a bigger issue.
The result, bizarrely, has been a shuffle among the hookers. Fraser Brown drops from the starting side to the bench as back-row cover, Ross Ford moves up from the bench to the starting side and Kevin Bryce takes Ford’s bench spot.
In the end, however, Nathan Hines, the former lock who is now an assistant coach, admitted it might help Scotland out of a problem since Hardie was otherwise going to have to play in every game. “This takes the decision on selection out of our hands,” Hines said.
Hardie was unlucky to get the bang on the head as Scotland defended their line in the final play of the game against Japan. He is not showing any signs of concussion but failed to pass one of the routine tests.
“That’s the risk you run when you only have one out-and-out seven in the squad,” said Hines. “It’s a credit to [Brown] and the squad that he’s rolling with it. Fraser’s just happy to play and do a job for the rest of the team. He may get a chance to start at hooker down the line but right now we need him to move to the bench.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel