GREGOR TOWNSEND, the Scotland head coach, can take a perverse delight in demonstrating how unpredictable he can be. So, given injuries, unavailability and form, perhaps his 36-man November squad with 10 uncapped players, including two plucked unheralded from the English Premiership, should not have been a shock.

At the start of this week, hardly anybody in Scotland had heard of Luke Hamilton or Chris Harris. The former, born and brought up in Wales and a product of the Scarlets academy before moving to Cardiff and then France, plays for Leicester but has never featured in discussions involving Scotland until Townsend unveiled him.

"He knows he is Scotland qualified," the coach insisted. "His dad is from Stirling, and he used to spend his summer holidays in Stirling – which sounds great. He came through the Welsh system, so he is Welsh and Scottish qualified. It is great that we can involve him."

Hamilton did play for Wales Under-20s in the 2012 Junior World Championship – he was part of the team which earned their first age-group win over New Zealand – but that brings back memories of five years ago when Andy Robinson tried to involve Steve Shingler, who is also half Scottish. Then, the Scots had to beat an embarrassing retreat when World Rugby ruled Shingler had committed to Wales.

Hamilton, however, is in a different position. The word in Wales is that though he did play for the Under 20s, he did not play in any games that would have tied him – he is free to choose. "It is checked. It is all done and dusted," Townsend insisted.

Under the current self-imposed restrictions in Wales, they would not consider picking him, so turning his attention to Scotland is probably a bit of a no-brainer as far as he is concerned.

"He is playing really well," Townsend added. "He is in our minds more as a six or eight but he has played the last two games at seven in the Champions Cup and was one of the best players on the field. For him to commit to Scotland is great for us.

"When he left Wales he came more on our radar, first with Glasgow and then Scotland. He has always said through his agent he was very interested but it is his form that has got him into the squad."

The other surprise package was Harris, a centre or wing at Newcastle Falcons, who Townsend insisted had been within a whisker of making the summer tour squad. Now that Harris has played in every game for his club this season, Townsend feels the time is right to have a closer look at him.

The 26-year-old was a late arrival in professional rugby, not joining the paid ranks until after university, but has been impressing this season, mainly at outside centre, but occasionally on the wing. He qualifies through an Edinburgh-born grandmother but, as Townsend joked, coming from Carlisle means he is "almost a Borderer".

"He is a player we have known for a while," Townsend added. "He has been very physical in defence. At the weekend he played wing, which is again of interest to us, but we see him more as a 13."

Those were the two selections totally out of left field, but there were plenty more that would have caught out many.

The front row is a bit of a disaster zone for Scotland at the moment with three looseheads currently injured – the groin tear Allan Dell picked up pre-match in Moscow will keep him out of the Tests, adding him to Alasdair Dickinson and Gordon Reid on the injured list while Rory Sutherland has played only one club game for Hawick and is nowhere near Test fitness – so he has had to pick the uncapped pair of Jamie Bhatti and Darryl Marfo.

They are the only fit Scottish looseheads playing regularly for their clubs, and will have to win caps next month – it's Hobson's choice.

There is also a first squad call for Byron McGuigan, the former Scotland Sevens player who is at Sale where he leads the Premiership tryscoring table. He is not the only former Sevens specialist to make the squad; Lee Jones and Dougie Fife are also there, though both have won 15s caps before.

Edinburgh's Nathan Fowles wins the battle to be the third scrum half in the squad, where a vacancy has been created by Greig Laidlaw's absence due to a broken ankle, with Townsend admitting that Sam Hidalgo-Clyne and others had been unlucky to miss out.

The other uncapped players have been involved in Scotland squads before. Phil Burleigh, Scott Cummings and Jamie Ritchie were all at the August camp in St Andrews while George Turner was on the summer tour, though he failed to win a cap.

There was, however, one piece of good news for Townsend. When Alex Dunbar hurt his knew in September and needed surgery, the most optimistic prognosis was that he would be back in action about the time of the Samoa Test, which sets the series going. In the event, he has made it back a lot earlier than expected.

"He’ll be able to train fully with us," said Townsend. "He trained yesterday. He won’t be available this week to play but we don’t have any reason to believe that he won’t be available for us next week."

On the other side, out go Damien Hoyland, Tim Visser, Alex Allan and Josh Strauss from the team that played Fiji in Scotland's last Test while four others, including John Hardie, are unavailable for one reason or another.