GREGOR Townsend has a reputation as an imaginative and adventurous coach, but supporters have been told not to expect too much in the way of innovation and experiment in his next few games in charge.

He may have picked seven uncapped players for a training squad for this week, but if any are actually going to play, it will be entirely on merit, he warned.

The reason is simple: the fixture list is crammed with high-profile matches and though Townsend did not say it, the reality is that he got something of a lesson in the dangers of taking too many risks when he made 12 changes to the team who played Fiji on tour and came a cropper in Suva.

With matches against Samoa and Italy book-ending the season, every other game is against a team in the top eight of the world rankings (the only side in that group Scotland don’t play is South Africa).

If they are to have any hope of keeping, or improving, their standing of sixth – they were up to fifth only to drop back after that Fiji loss and South Africa whitewashed France to overtake them – it is time for the tried and tested, not for gambling.

“We have to put our best team out there,” Townsend said. “The way the November fixtures fall, playing Samoa first, with two teams in the top four after that, I don’t think there is any room to experiment.

“We need our best team just to beat Samoa. To build on that momentum ahead of the All Blacks game, we need the strongest possible team. Innovation will come in other ways and that is probably the most exciting thing.

“In terms of selection, it will be different from previously at Glasgow, which was a different situation where you had to rotate and had to manage your squad.”

Which means two things: there is still time for the big names who missed out – mainly centre Matt Scott and No 8 Josh Strauss – to rescue their Test careers; and the real youngsters should be thinking more about next summer’s tour than any immediate prospect of international action.

It is tempting to see some of the exclusions as people paying the penalty for the sub-standard performance against Fiji, and undoubtedly that did play a part in Townsend’s thinking, but as he pointed out himself, Scott did not play in that game but did start against Italy and played the second half against Australia – both wins – but still did not do enough.

There are four from that Fiji match who have been cut, but in the real world Ruaridh Jackson and Alex Allen were lucky to have been there in the first place; leaving Damien Hoyland, the wing who got on the wrong side of some brutal tackling from the powerful Fijians, and Strauss as the ones who can feel the game cost them.

As for the youngsters, these camps serve two functions: simply showing them what Test level training looks like so it is not a shock if they do reach the squad with a realistic chance of going further; and maybe, just maybe, to change the coaches’ minds they are ready now.

“If one of these young guys comes through they’ll have done it on merit and that’ll be brilliant,” Townsend said. “We’re looking for the best players available who could have a chance of playing in November and the Six Nations. Given our injuries it has meant a couple of players have come through – who knows come November time?

“You watch them train, how they’ve played, especially when they’ve been tested at a higher level. Have they thrived in that environment? Have they frozen a little bit? Have they learned from it and got better during games?

“There are certain traits we look for in the players we believe will thrive in Test level. You need to have a real mental toughness about you, wanting to be out there playing against the best in the world.

“It’s really how they do at pro level. So Matt Fagerson [the 19-year-old back row] and Darcy Graham [the 20-year-old wing], for example – if they win their positions in the Glasgow and Edinburgh teams, that would be saying these guys have done really well and that would add to our depth in these positions.”

What is probably more of a dilemma for him than the five uncapped youngsters are the two experienced imports who qualify on residency. Phil Burleigh and Anton Bresler have both done sterling work for Edinburgh over the last three years and are embarking on their fourth seasons with the club, but Burleigh is 31 in October, and Bresler 29, and both are challenging in positions where there is already plenty of cover.