THE year after a Rugby World Cup is often a fallow period. A few old hands announce their retirement from the international game; others have that decision taken for them; and national sides in general often have a dishevelled look to them, as if still suffering from an extended hangover.
Given that Vern Cotter is entering his final season as Scotland coach before handing over to Gregor Townsend, you might expect our own national side to have that same transitional feel to it. Instead, the squad to be announced by the New Zealander this morning for the Autumn Tests against Australia, Argentina and Tonga could represent a significant step down the road towards the next World Cup in 2019.
To see how much has changed in the year since that momentous quarter-final defeat by the Wallabies, and to sense the further alterations that should arise over the next few months, you need only look at the Scotland 15 which began that game. All are still hopeful of continuing to contribute to the national team, but some are currently unavailable through injury and others are probably approaching the end of their cap careers. At the same time, several young players who came nowhere close to Cotter’s World Cup squad are poised to make their mark.
The team that began the 35-34 loss at Twickenham was: Stuart Hogg; Sean Maitland, Mark Bennett, Peter Horne, Tommy Seymour; Finn Russell, Greig Laidlaw; Alasdair Dickinson, Ross Ford, WP Nel, Richie Gray, Jonny Gray, Blair Cowan, John Hardie, David Denton. The substitutes were Richie Vernon, Sean Lamont, Gordon Reid, Fraser Brown, Jon Welsh, Tim Swinson and Josh Strauss. Henry Pyrgos was unused.
Hogg and Maitland are fair bets to start the Australia game - the latter has slotted in swiftly at Saracens since his summer move from London Irish - but Horne and Seymour are currently injured while Bennett has been unable to hold down a regular starting place with Glasgow. Half-backs Russell and Laidlaw should continue their partnership for the time being, though it remains to be seen if Laidlaw, now 31, carries on all the way to the next World Cup. The captain’s move to Clermont next summer is likely to place extra demands on his time, while Pyrgos’s increasingly impressive leadership will put pressure on Laidlaw’s retention of the No 9 jersey.
Of the pack that started Scotland’s last outing against the Australians, Jonny Gray, Pyrgos’s co-captain at Glasgow, and tighthead Nel could conceivably be the only ones who will be on the field come kick-off on 12 November. Dickinson and Denton are injured, Cowan’s place in the squad is in doubt, and Richie Gray faces a fight with Swinson for a second-row slot alongside his younger brother. Ford, now 32, will give way sooner or later to Edinburgh team-mate Stuart McInally or Fraser Brown of the Warriors.
In the shorter term, the most intriguing selection could be at openside, where Hardie, the apple of Cotter’s eye last year, is battling with Hamish Watson for the Edinburgh No 7 jersey. Watson has been superb at times this season, including earlier on when Alan Solomons was still coach of the capital side; on Saturday, his apparently tireless support play was highlighted when he popped up in support to round off a length-of-the-field try.
When both men are at the top of their game, you have to go for Hardie; but if Cotter is picking on form it will be hard for him to omit Watson. And, speaking of Edinburgh back rows, 21-year-old Magnus Bradbury surely merits inclusion in the squad, even if a place in the starting line-up may have to wait for the Tonga match.
When it comes to form, both Gordon Reid and Josh Strauss were substituted during the first half of Glasgow’s loss to Munster at the weekend, and may need a couple of good club displays before being included in Cotter’s squad. Of the other subs from a year ago, Welsh seems in good shape with Newcastle, but Vernon is injured, while the question about 35-year-old Lamont - as it has been for a good couple of years now - is how long he can last at Test level.
Cotter’s selections today and next month will not be a complete upheaval. But they could nonetheless amount to a quiet revolution, and give us the first, embryonic glimpses of a new national team that will grow to maturity over the next couple of years under Townsend.
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