Toony's Team Trumpeted - Test Tensions Trendingl

GREGOR TOWNSEND has spoken, and revealed his first Scotland squad, to face Italy, in Singapore, on Saturday. The XV he will send out to hopefully entertain and lift us on Saturday morning is:

Duncan Taylor (Saracens); Damien Hoyland (Edinburgh), Matt Scott (Gloucester), Alex Dunbar (Glasgow Warriors), Tim Visser (Harlequins); Finn Russell (Glasgow Warriors), Ali Price (Glasgow Warriors); Allan Dell (Edinburgh), Ross Ford (Edinburgh), WP Nel (Edinburgh); Tim Swinson (Glasgow Warriors), Ben Toolis (Edinburgh); John Barclay (Scarlets – Capt), John Hardie (Edinburgh), Josh Strauss (Sale Sharks). Replacements: Gordon Reid (London Irish), Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors), Zander Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors), Rob Harley (Glasgow Warriors), Ryan Wilson (Glasgow Warriors), Magnus Bradbury (Edinburgh); Henry Pyrgos (Glasgow Warriors), Peter Horne (Glasgow Warriors).

That's pretty-much the expected line-up; the only real doubt was who would get to fill Hoggie's number 15 shirt. I must say I find the change at loose-head intriguing, where Allan Dell starts, with Gordy Reid on the bench.

Scotland prop Allan Dell

I reckon Gordy is the stronger scrummager, so, I would have started him and utilised Dell's greater range about the park over the final quarter, when the Italian forwards who had been on from the start were beginning to wilt in what will be a steamy Singapore atmosphere.

It is a good move to resst Jonny Gray, and Ben Toolis, after making the PRO12 Dream Team is well worthy of his second cap, which I sincerely hope lasts a lot longer than his first, against the same Italian opposition, when he copped a yellow card within seconds it seemed of coming-on. Up until this team was named, Ben was in danger of supplanting the late Gordon Macdonald of London Scottish as the Scotland rugby cap with the shortest international career.

Ben Toolis - deserves his second cap

This is by way of an aside, but, it something I have been meaning to get off my chest for some time. It concerns how team line-ups are announced.

I know, it has, in the wider rugby terms, got hee-haw to do with the game, but, I can remember only one change to how line-ups are announced, in the nearly 60-years I have been around the game. When I first got involved, the teams were always listed – as the above is, from full-back through to scrum-half, then the pack, from front row to back. Back in the 1950s, the pack order was always 3-2-3 – front-row, the two locks, then the three breakaways, but, back then the back-row was generally blind-side flanker, number eight, open-side flanker.

Then, that changed, from numbers 6-8-7. to 6-7-8. However, since all packs today pack-down 3-4-1, surely common-sense dictates the pack members ought to be listed: 1, loose-head, 2, hooker, 3, tight-head, 4, blind-side flanker, 5 and 6 locks, 7, open-side flanker, 8, number-eight.

Indeed, why do more clubs not, as my own wee bunch of unarmed Ayrshire terrorists do, list the team from numbers 1 through to 15 (mind you, they still list the 3-4-1 pack as loose-head, hooker, tight-head, lock, lock, bs flanker, os flanker, number-eight.

Carrying-on, why is the hooker replacement always number 16, with the props 17 and 18? Surely common-sense would have the loose-head replacement wearing 16, the hooker 17 and the tight-head replacement 18.

A wee history lesson here. I still have my programmes from my first Murrayfield internationals back in the 1950s. Then, the teams were numbered differently – the full-back wore 1, the three-quarters wore 2, 3, 4 and 5; the stand-off wore 6 and the scrum-half 7. Up front the British Isles teams generally worked with the front rows wearing 8, 9 and 10, the locks 11 and 12 and the back-row 13, 15 and 14. The French seemed to prefer to have the front row wearing 13, 14 and 15 and work back from there; then, somewher around 1960, we changed to the numbering system we still use today.

It's a funny old game Saint. Mind you, in football, where we have more systems than Microsoft, teams are still generally listed in the old 2-3-5 numbering system which went out somewhere around 1935.

HAVE they got a holiday coming up or something? Anyway, the little people inside BT Murrayfield, who actually make Scottish Rugby work, have been busy this week, putting out fixtures. The league games were revealed two days ago, then, yesterday, the fixtures for the revamped BT Scottish Cup came out.

The competition has been revamped (again), and is now a 16-club, straight knock-out competition, which, I believe is a tad unfair on those clubs in National Leagues 1, 2 and 3 who were not among the top 16 finishers last season.

The draw is: Ayr v Currie Chieftains, Boroughmuir v Gala, Stirling County v Falkirk, Glasgow Hawks v Watsonians, Hawick v Selkirk, Edinburgh Academicals v Heriot's, Jed-forest v Melrose and Dundee High School FP v Marr.

OK, there are one or two juicy local clashes there, which will get the local interest flowing, but, while I accept all the pish about the romance of the cup and why it has to be an all-in draw, may I offer a dissenting opinion.

When they draw Wimbledon, you know, you are not going to see Murray v Nadal, or Federer v Djorkavic in the first week. You might indeed never see it, but, if you do, then it will be in a meaningful game – in the last four or in the final.

Look at the first tie in that Scottish Cup draw, the League Champions v the fourth-best team in the land. If you're going to limit an entry to the top 16 clubs, then it seems to me, that draw should be seeded: 1 v 16, 2 v 15, 3 v 14, etc. with the draw organised in such a way that, form holding, you have the top four sides contesting the semi-finals and (hopefully) the top two teams in the final.

If they have an off-day, and lose to a lesser side, good, there's your cup romance for you. I am not, by the way advocating the top teams get home advantage, indeed, I would hope the higher-ranked club would always be asked to travel – there's your way of levelling the playing field.

I WAS not in the least surprised when the Blues beat the Lions in game two of the current New Zealand Tour. Unlike the Provincial Barbarians, the Blues are a team of full-time professional New Zealand rugby players, who have been together for a number of games in Super Rugby. Playing any of the NZ Super Rugby franchises is the equivalent of another international for the Lions – the teams are that good.

And, next up are the Crusaders, a side with a record which reads: played 14, won 14; it will not get any easier for Warren Gatland and his men. If the Provincial Barbarians' game was tough, and the Blues one tougher, clearly, facing the Crusaders will be the toughest test yet. And, it will not get any easier.

Who'd be a Lion.