Gregor Townsend has revealed that talisman Finn Russell and captain Stuart Hogg have been excused from Scotland’s summer tour in order to prevent burnout ahead of next year’s World Cup.
The head coach is adamant that the omission of the key duo from the 40-man squad for the trip to South America later this month has nothing to do with the fact they were among six players involved in an unauthorised night out during the Six Nations in March.
Both Russell and Hogg were part of the British and Irish Lions squad last summer. They and fellow Lion Chris Harris, who was not one of those involved in the incident after the victory in Rome, have all been given this summer off to recharge their batteries after a gruelling schedule at club and international level.
Hamish Watson, Rory Sutherland, Ali Price, Duhan Van Der Merwe and Zander Fagerson were also part of the Lions tour last year, but have all been included by Townsend as he feels they have had adequate rest over the past season.
“The Lions was a huge commitment and it’s affected players in different ways this year,” said Townsend. “When you achieve something of that level, and the commitment you put into making it happen, and then the length of the tour itself – seven weeks and playing all the way through to August – some of those players have played a lot of rugby this year.
“We looked at individuals, where they are at the end of this season, where they are in terms of their career, and whether the best thing for them was to be on tour or to have some time off. Some regulars over the last 12-24 months weren’t considered for those reasons.
“Once we set out that we believe the best thing for Stuart, Finn and Chris is not touring, they accepted that. They’ve played the most minutes of all our players this year. When you put that on the back of them having the longest seasons last year it became more clear to us that a summer off would be the best thing for them.
“That might have been different if we didn’t have what is coming up the following season. This time next year we’ll be in a World Cup camp playing three or four warm-up games before we go on to the World Cup so it’s going to be a demanding period for them all next year. On the back of the last 12-18 months, we feel it’s right for them not to tour.”
Asked if the incident in March played any part in the non-selection of Hogg and Russell, Townsend said: “No, no. To be honest, a lot of what needed to be sorted out and discussed had already happened that week behind closed doors before the public found out on the Friday. We moved on fairly quickly from that.
“It was just a reminder – a positive reminder – that we needed to talk about why we’re here and we’ll do that more as we go to camp next week.”
Edinburgh lock Grant Gilchrist will captain Scotland in this summer’s tour, which includes an ‘A’ game against Chile later this month and three Tests against Argentina next month. However, Townsend fully expects Hogg to resume the role thereafter.
“Yeah, I hope so,” he said when asked if he envisaged the Exeter full-back remaining as skipper. “I’ve said that to Stuart. Obviously a lot can happen between now and November.
“We’ve been really lucky that Stuart’s been available for us mostly throughout the last four or five years. He’s played really well for us and been an excellent captain.
“There are things he needs to work on as a leader, just like he needs to work on things as a player, just like I need to work on a few things as a coach. He’s earned the right for a rest this summer.”
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 here