SCOTLAND follow the Lions' example by going into the first game of
their tour on Saturday without their captain. Andy Nicol has been rested
because of a knee injury on the flight out to Fiji.
During the first international leg of the journey, between London and
Los Angeles, a trolley was accidentally rammed into Nicol's left knee as
it protruded into the aisle while he was asleep.
The knock aggravated an injury for which the Dundee High School FP
scrum half had been having treatment since the Alloa Brewery Cup final a
week past Saturday.
It is only a precaution that the tour captain misses the first match.
Allan Hosie, the tour manager, explained: ''We don't want to give the
impression back home that we have a serious injury problem. Andy is
fit.''
Nicol has been having ultrasound treatment from David McLean, the
Glasgow Caledonian University senior lecturer who is here as both
physiotherapist and fitness adviser, and Hosie emphasised that the scrum
half would be taking a full part in the two training runs today.
The player himself is confident that, if necessary, he could stand in
for Bryan Redpath at any time in Saturday's match, though he is equally
happy to be resting the knee from match-play after the injury.
In Nicol's absence his fellow cap, Ian Smith, the Gloucester flanker,
will lead the Scots against Fiji B at the A D Patel Stadium in Nadi's
Prince Charles Park. It will be the second time that Smith has captained
Scotland on tour, though he has unhappy memories of the first occasion,
a heavy defeat by New South Wales in Sydney last year.
Less then 24 hours after their arrival in Nadi the Scots found
yesterday how different life is here in Fiji. The Prime Minister,
Lieutentant General Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka, was just another hotel
guest in the restaurant while the Scottish rugby team were having
breakfast yesterday.
There he was, reading a newspaper at a table in the middle of the
canopied open-air room surrounded by Scots and other diners. Not a hint
was to be seen that he was anyone of importance apart from the car with
a Fijian flag parked outside his motel room.
Yet imagine what the scene would have been if Major and, say, Glasgow
had been substituted for Rabuka and Nadi. The place would have been
crawling with security men.
Fiji's weather, too, is different, a change from the snow on the hills
that the Scots left behind on Sunday. Throughout yesterday the sun
blazed down, though later, before the sudden tropical sunset, the
Nausori Range peaks across the valley from the Scots' hotel had drawn a
clock of cloud.
It was 31 degrees in the shade by the time the Scots had finished
their first serious work of the tour. The relative humidity was 65%,
though less then the seasonal average, and the hope is that that factor
will not increase before Saturday's match.
Richie Dixon, as the forwards' coach, even had time to fit in
scrummage practice with his two full packs. The absence of a scrum
machine was no handicap. ''There's no substitute for live scrummaging,''
he explained.
As yet, the Scots do not know if they will have a machine available
for such practice when they move on to Tonga at the end of the month.
The only machine there is owned by King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, and Hosie
is waiting to hear whether his majesty has granted permission for the
Scots to use it.
Scotland's XV for Saturday:
K M Logan; K R Milligan, I C Jardine, R C MacNaughton, J A Kerr; A
Donaldson, B W Redpath; G R Isaac, J A Hay, G D Wilson, C A Gray, R
Scott, D J McIvor, G W Weir, I R Smith (captain). Replacements -- N J
Grecian, D S Wyllie, A D Nicol, C D Hogg, P M Jones, M W Scott.
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