AFTER unveiling a side stacked with newcomers, Shade Munro, the Scotland A coach, has challenged his team to match the feat produced by the same side a year ago when their 35-0 win over England catapulted 10 of the side to win full international honours within a year.
This year's group against the same opponents is an eclectic mix of raw youth and experience, the latter represented by Nikki Walker, the wing who broke a leg in the final warm-up match before the Rugby World Cup, making his long-awaited international comeback; the former by promising youngsters such as Sean Kennedy, the scrum-half who has been a surprise call-up to the national training squad, and Duncan Taylor, the 23-year-old Saracens wing who has thrown his lot in with his parents' country.
"Last year's performance was fantastic, almost unreal, and 10 guys have been capped since then," Munro observed. "There's a few players from that game who are still here and getting a second shot at it. It is important, that is exactly what these games are for. If they perform well against England A in front of the selectors and on TV, then they have got every chance of moving up.
"The motivation is that this is international rugby. There are a lot of young players coming in and this is their first experience of playing at international level. There are also guys who have played for the A team before and guys who have played for the national team. It is a chance for them to show what they can do. The selectors will be watching, if they perform well, then they have every opportunity of featuring in the Six Nations."
In reality, he does not have many options in most positions, but for rookie captain Ryan Wilson, the Glasgow No.8 earning his first chance at leading a professional team, the quality of players on display demonstrates the strength in depth of the Scottish game.
"I am really happy with the strength of this squad," he said. "You look at the number who went to the international training camp; a few of us have come from that and into this and you can see that the strength in depth is getting better and better every year. That helps Scottish rugby throughout.
"We have players who have come in only recently, we have good strength in depth and will look to take the game to England."
Overall, the side has a reasonable balance, with Jon Welsh, the Glasgow prop, continuing his return from injury by slotting in at tighthead, while Wilson is joined by Stuart McInally and Richie Vernon in a back row packed with pace.
Behind, there will be some interest in seeing Taylor, but more in seeing how Kennedy and Tom Heathcote, who made his full Scotland debut against Tonga, fit together as a new half-back partnership.
For the longer-term future, there is plenty to look forward to among the bench players where the likes of Jamie Stevenson, the London Scottish scrum-half, and Grant Sheills, the Newcastle prop, are expecting to make their international bows.
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