Copyright scotsman
The matches against New Zealand and Argentina are clearly the most eagerly anticipated of Scotland’s autumn Tests but the series begins this weekend against the USA at Murrayfield and it’s an important fixture. Once again we are playing a game outside the recognised international window and I think that has two big benefits. The extra match gives exposure to emerging nations and also helps Scotland. These types of games haven't always been pretty. They have often been disjointed and scrappy but that's actually been really, really important for Scotland's development and they allow Gregor Townsend to look at the next layer of squad depth. Gregor will select a side of home-based players only to face the US and that will be useful. Because we have only two professional teams it can be difficult for the likes of Harri Morris, Paddy Harrison and Murphy Walker to get games. So in terms of player development, the games against the US this weekend and Tonga on November 23 are important because they allow the coaches more time to work with players who are perhaps not yet the first string and still build cohesion in the squad. I think from a results point of view, they have to win three out of the four. It is inconceivable for Scotland to come away from the Tests against the USA and Tonga with anything other than two victories. Then you have the matches with Argentina and New Zealand. Argentina are a brilliant team and anyone who watched the Rugby Championship in the summer could see how dangerous they are in the way they beat New Zealand and Australia, and ran South Africa close in the final game. But Scotland have had a really good record at home against Argentina in these autumn fixtures in recent years. It is the end of a long season for the Argentinians from an international point of view, so Scotland really have to target that fixture. But before that, it’s the New Zealand game a week on Saturday. We've never beaten New Zealand but we've come close a couple of times. It's going to be a big ask, particularly when you look up front. I don’t think Zander Fagerson will be fit for this weekend’s opener against the US so does that mean he comes straight in against the All Blacks? It would be the first game of rugby since April 5. That's a big ask but, to be honest, if anyone can do it, Zander can. But we have to be careful how we manage him. Along with Finn Russell and Sione Tuipulotu, he is one of Scotland’s most important players and there is an element of risk about throwing him straight in against New Zealand. Tighthead is one of those positions for Scotland where there is one stand-out candidate and concerns beyond that. It is a real conundrum. It’s a specialised role. You don’t find world-class tightheads on every street corner. It's one of the most difficult positions to play and that’s why they're like gold dust. Every club in the English Premiership is trying to find tightheads at the moment because they all have massive injury lists. Clubs are casting their nets far and wide, scrambling around, to see who’s available to fill urgent holes in their squads. There's almost a worldwide crisis around the shortage of tightheads. And we feel it more than most when Zander is unavailable. He has not played for almost seven months due, firstly, to the calf injury which forced him to miss the Lions tour, and then, more recently, a knee problem. The other Scotland tightheads in the autumn squad don't seem to get a lot of game time for their clubs. And either they're not at Zander’s level or they just can't stay fit. Murphy Walker, for example, has been at Glasgow for about five or six years now. He's played five games for Scotland. Most of those have been in a situation where he's not even playing at Glasgow and has been put into a Scotland team to try and give him games. He's had a terrible time with injury which has meant he has not been able to get enough games in him to develop. It’s a fact of rugby that as a young tighthead, you're going to get destroyed in games early on in your career. And sometimes it's about figuring out what not to do before you learn what to do. And that comes with playing and training time. Training time is so important and if players are not fit they miss out on that all important development on the training pitch. I think there are a number of Scotland tightheads behind Zander who are at a similar level to each other but have varying strengths. Elliot Millar Mills can lock down a scrum for you and has proven himself around the park but again, he's not Zander. Murphy's a good rugby player but he has had his struggles at scrum time particularly off the back of long injury layoffs. And then you've got D’Arcy Rae who's a very strong scrummager when he gets it right. He’s very abrasive around the pitch but not really a ball-playing rugby player. There is some depth behind Zander but they are not anywhere near his level because he’s up there with the top two or three tightheads in the world. You can never know why injuries happen but I think the amount of rugby that he’s played over the last 18 months will have probably played a big part. So it's important for Scotland that they have someone not just to back him up but to compete with him and allow him to not have to play as many minutes as he has in recent seasons. My old position of hooker is another area which causes me concern. Ewan Ashman is probably Scotland's number one at the minute. I think he's had a lot of faith shown in him by Gregor and the coaching team and sometimes you have to give people the opportunity and the time to develop. Ewan's a good player around the pitch. He's very abrasive, he's good defensively and his scrummaging is getting better. His lineouts are still a worry but there has been improvement for Edinburgh at the start of the season. He has done well over the last few years in a Scotland shirt, but I don’t think he's ever really grasped the nettle, made the position his own, and established himself as a frontline Test hooker. What makes things interesting now is that George Turner has come back from Japan and is playing regularly in the Prem for Harlequins. Going to Japan for a season has freshened him up. And I think being down at Quins helps too. He's not being given the role of having to start and play 50, 60 minutes. At the minute, he brings that spark of physicality and energy off the bench for 25, 30 minutes. So you have Ewan and George and then there's this bunfight behind them. There are five hookers in Gregor’s 45-man squad if you include Dylan Richardson, and I think we have to. I know he’s been playing at flanker for Edinburgh this season but he was signed as a hooker. And I think Gregor was pretty explicit last year when he said he saw Dylan as a hooker who can also play flanker. Then we have Paddy Harrison and the uncapped Harri Morris. A ninth of the Scotland squad are hookers and I think that tells you the issue they have. If they were really, really comfortable with the three first-choice hookers, then they would have gone with that. The fact that there are five in there tells me they don’t know who’s next. Paddy has had a couple of games at the start of the season and Harri only played in pre-season. I've seen Harri a lot and coached against him and he has a bucket load of potential. He’s really abrasive, really powerful, really physical, and has good skills but he’s not had a lot of game time aside from a couple of pre-season games. So to go from that to potentially facing the All Blacks in 12 days' time if we were struck down by injuries would be incredible. But that tells you where we are at the minute. And it seems quite far removed from the last 15-20 years when there was a core of experienced Scotland hookers such as Ross Ford, Dougie Hall, Scott Lawson, Stuart McInally, George Turner and myself. There's a lot of potential there, but just not a lot of minutes, and it's why this Saturday's game is so important for those on the periphery who want to break through at Test level.
