Duncan Weir is playing “the best rugby of his career” and will slot seamlessly into the gap left by the injured Finn Russell and Adam Hastings for the four-match Autumn Nations Cup campaign, believes Gregor Townsend.
The head coach confirmed that Russell suffered a tear in his groin abductor muscle just half an hour into the win against Wales in Llanelli at the weekend, and is out for a minimum of six weeks, possibly until the New Year, although surgery is not required.
Hastings suffered two shoulder separations while on as a replacement for Russell in the Scots’ 14-10 win in the final Six Nations game of 2020, and will require surgery. He will be out for four months, missing the Autumn games and most likely the entirety of the 2021 Six Nations as well.
With Edinburgh’s Jaco van der Walt not eligible until after first game of the Nations Cup against Italy game and Townsend not calling on any other stand-offs in a squad of 35 to be named this week, it means that Weir is surely a certain starter for that game.
“Dunky is playing the best rugby of his career,” said the head coach. “I have worked with him for a long time and it has been really encouraging to see how well he has played pre-and post-lockdown.
“There is a calmness about the way he plays. The way they play at his club Worcester is not dissimilar to what we want to do moving the ball, and he has really improved in that area while he still has that very good all-round kicking ability.
“He is so passionate about playing for Scotland. He will work hard and defend well so this could be a big opportunity for him with those two injuries. I’m sure he will be doing all he can to grab it.”
Hastings carried on after his first shoulder separation in Llanelli, popping the joint back in, but then suffered a second separation.
“He carried on and it was one of these unfortunate things,” said Townsend. “He must have landed on a sensitive area or an area that made it come loose again.
“Maybe there were some underlying issues there and it came out and now we have to make sure it gets fixed so the rest of his career he is not in a place to re-injure that shoulder.
“It is a blow for both players, and a blow for us to lose both of them in the same position. They have not had many injuries in their careers, so let’s hope that they get through rehab really quickly and come back stronger and still have rugby to play this season.”
Scotland will have another option after Edinburgh’s van der Walt becomes eligible on November 16. The South African will complete the residency period of three years then, but left for the country of his birth on Monday for his wedding in Johannesburg this week.
He will return on Monday, go into quarantine and likely be available for the second game of the competition at home to France, but as this will be his first involvement with Scotland it’s more likely he would come into consideration to start the third game, against Fiji at the end of the month.
“Within our squad James Lang has covered ten in every game he has played this year, whether he has started there or come off the bench,” continued Townsend. “Stuart Hogg moved there at the weekend, Blair Kinghorn is an outside option too.
“We feel it is better Peter Horne stays with (Glasgow) as he has played well in his last two games. He is another option for us too but going into the Italy game we are comfortable with the options we have in our squad.”
Sean Maitland – pending any disciplinary bans implemented by the RFU for being part of the group that broke coronavirus protocols while with the Barbarians – and Exeter’s Sam Hidalgo-Clyne will join the squad at the end of this week with the group being reduced to 35.
Townsend will shuffle his hand selection-wise during the four-match competition – opposition and the location of an extra game in December will be determined by the first three games – but because he has to.
“We will be very lucky if we don’t get any injuries during this four-game series, and we have to manage players’ workloads for four test matches in a row,” said Townsend.
“The Italy game is so crucial. It is an away game before we have two games at home and if we want to go far in this tournament and go into the play-offs for the first two places then we have to come back from Italy with a win.
“We have to improve from how we played at the weekend. We can’t be satisfied just with picking up an away win, we have to get closer to our potential which we believe is a 20% improvement from what we did at the weekend.”
