Scottish Rugby are taking time to digest the £70,000 fine and an order to apologise from World Rugby for the dispute arising from the threat of cancellation of their final pool game at the Rugby World Cup in Japan, but appear in little mood to compromise.
There’s one more week of training camp before Scotland’s World Cup squad actually get wound into some live action, and Jamie Ritchie is champing at the bit for a game.
John Barclay is happy to back at the World Cup and part of a back row trio that is “an area of strength” for Scotland.
Scotland’s hopes of forcing World Rugby to play their pivotal Rugby World Cup game against Japan on Sunday appear to be floundering despite Scottish Rugby CEO Mark Dodson claiming “in the court of public opinion, we’ve already won” the case to have the game not cancelled.
Edinburgh will need to wait until next week for a full wave of their Scotland stars to return to duty with national captain Stuart McInally not due back until the end of this month.
Four years ago Samoa took Scotland to the brink in the World Cup and it was the scrum-half in dark blue that rescued them in Newcastle, and Greig Laidlaw doesn’t want the same game this Monday.
Gav Scott remembers getting the call in the middle of the night to get on the plane to join the Scotland squad, and he doesn’t think it’ll be any different for those brought in late to Japan.
Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill has again slammed refereeing standards in the Guinness PRO14 after making an official complaint about the same ref for the second time in a month.
Needing a recharge after the Rugby World Cup in Japan, George Horne went back to his roots.
We’ve just hit three weeks in Japan in the press corps, but the team have been here for more than four now, and they seem to be battling to stave off tour boredom.