WELL – we ken noo – Toony remains perhaps the only person in Scotland who thinks Blair Kinghorn could make an international ten, having named him as replacement for the injured Finn Russell, in the team to face Italy, at BT Murrayfield on Saturday.
Kinghorn's selection is one of four changes from the team which lost to Ireland. The others see Ollie Smith come in for the crocked Stuart Hogg, Sam Skinner take the place of the injured Richie Gray and Hamish Watson come in for Matt Fagerson, who drops to the bench.
The team (as ever in 1-23 order) is:
Pierre Schoeman, George Turner, Zander Fagerson, Sam Skinner, Jonny Gray, Jamie Ritchie (Captain), Hamish Watson, Jack Dempsey; Ben White, Blair Kinghorn, Duhan van der Merwe, Sione Tuipulotu, Huw Jones, Kyle Steyn, Ollie Smith. Replacements: Ewan Ashman, Rory Sutherland, WP Nel, Scott Cummings, Matt Fagerson; Ali Price, Ben Healy, Cameron Redpath.
It's not the team I'd have picked. I would have given Healy the ten shirt, although I assume he will come off the bench at some point. I feel VDM owes us at least a couple of tries, after his horror showing against the Irish.
If Matt Fagerson can get dropped for one ridiculous forward pass (I don't think he did much wrong otherwise) then the big Saffer is a lucky boy. Jonny Gray also owes us a big performance, I feel he's been living off his reputation all season. I would have picked Scott Cummings before him.
I welcome the complete change of reserve front row, but would still like to know what George Horne has to do to get a game. Those points made, I still feel we will win this one, perhaps with a bonus point.
IT OFTEN pays a journalist to do what a lot of 'normal' readers don't and look beyond the headline. This I did yesterday, when checking-out a story on the News section of the World Rugby website.
I chanced on a story about the upcoming Commonwealth Youth Games, to be held in Trinidad and Tobago in August. Rugby Sevens will be one of the sports featured at these games, and the teams who will be taking part in the male competition are:
Trinidad & Tobago, Canada, Fiji, Jamaica, Scotland and South Africa.
With Fiji and the Junior Blitzboks in the field it will not be an easy tournament for the young Scots, but, it should be wonderful experience for the lads – and their coaches – who are chosen to participate. It also means, while at adult level apart from the once-every-four-years Commonwealth Games, Scotland's Sevens programme is now part of the Great Britain one, at World Rugby/HSBC Series level and the Olympic Games, the entry for Trinidad and Tobago ensures, we still have to have an interest in the short game – which we invented – at Murrayfield.
If you browse the News pages of the SRU website, you learn that a fair bit of work has been going on with our Under-18s. They have already beaten a Newcastle Falcons U-18 side and have an away game in Wales on Sunday.
Ross Miller is the man in charge at 15-a-side level, but, dare I suggest, we could maybe get GB Sevens player-coach Robbie Fergusson involved for the trip to Trinidad by the Sevens squad.
STILL on the subject of player development, I see the high heid yins in our game are drumming-up interest in the revived Inter-District Championship, which will be run-off over a couple of weeks in May.
I dare say they will be getting excited down in the Borders, looking-out those old red and white South scarves, and no doubt fighting like rats in a sack for the right to host South games (even though Netherdale has already been named as venue for their opener against Edinburgh, on Tuesday, 9 May).
This revived competition is not like the old Inter-District Championship. That was an integral part of the sorting out system for selecting Scotland's Five Nations team. In comparison, this new competition is akin to the old Scottish Junior Football Association's inter-regional games.
This new competition will enable the bosses of the six FOSROC Super6 franchises to decide which players they might want to recruit into their set-up – although, to be honest, I don't see too-many of the likely players getting that call-up.
If it's not something like a trialist tier – to help identify young players who could move up from the club game to the performance tiers – it's a waste of time. I could even support it more if it was used to help us select a meaningful Club XV, perhaps to play a Welsh Clubs XV, an Irish side chosen from players in the All-Ireland League and English players selected from the levels below the Premiership and the Championship, then, the revived Inter-District Championship would have a purpose. Otherwise – why bother.
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