Scotland’s sky-high confidence after Twickenham probably needed to come back to earth for Saturday’s second game against Wales, and injury issues to key men have sobered the mood.
Jamie Ritchie, Cameron Redpath and Sean Maitland have all been ruled out of Scotland’s attempt to win two opening games to a Five or Six Nations Championship for the first time since 1996, when head coach Gregor Townsend was at the controls on the field rather than off it.
Ritchie – with Hamish Watson probably Scotland’s most consistent player of the last three years – and Maitland are likely just missing this game. They should make Scotland’s next history-crushing attempt in Paris, with the help of the championship’s first bye week.
Redpath’s loss a crushing blow
Your Scotland team to face Wales in our first home match of the 2021 Guinness Six Nations, live on @BBCSport 🏴#AsOne
— Scottish Rugby (@Scotlandteam) February 11, 2021
The absence of Redpath, who impressed so much on debut at Twickenham, is a crushing disappointment. The 21-year-old suffered a neck injury which only manifested itself after Saturday’s game.
A scan has confirmed “a neural issue” and it’s not clear how long he’ll be out. The hope is that he can return later in the championship, possibly after the second bye week.
Unusually, Townsend has replaced the injured trio with players who were not in the squad of 23 for Twickenham, leaving the bench untouched. Blade Thomson will replace Ritchie at blindside, James Lang returns to the centre for Redpath, while Darcy Graham is recalled for Maitland.
No complacency for exeperienced Wales
Townsend said he’s detected no complacency in the squad this week in preparation for Wales, who have named a much-changed team due to their own considerable injury issues.
“Winning helps in terms of the mood, the confirmation of what players are doing can lead to some excellent results,” said the head coach. “But there is a concern always that confidence can make you take your eye off the ball at times.
“We’ve not seen that from our players this week. It’s been a very similar build-up to the England week, in terms of how well the players have trained.
“We know this is a big challenge this weekend, a very physical team who are coming up here with the confidence of winning. They’re a very experienced team.
“Every game is different. But we’re going to not just back up our performance, but improve on it.
“There are a number of areas where we could have done things better. But the fundamentals put us in place to get that win. So we’ll need to see that again.”
Three new starters not involved at Twickenham
The three changes that needed to be made required bringing in players from outwith Saturday’s squad, continued Townsend.
“With Blade it was really the blend of the back row – Jamie has the line-out presence as well as his all-round game, and Blade brings that.
“We have two out-and-out 12s in our squad, in James and Duncan (Taylor), and it became a decision between one of those two. We feel James is better placed to play 80 minutes at that high intensity, just because Duncan hasn’t had as many games in the last few weeks.
“Darcy likewise was an easy change because we didn’t have a winger on the bench last week. It’s a strange one, but the players coming in were either the right positions or the right blend for this weekend.”
`Red Zone’ efficiency an improvement that needs to happen
Despite the changes, the aim is to push on and take advantage of any dominance, something they didn’t do at Twickenham when 11-6 flattered England.
“We felt that with the dominance we had and the number of occasions we were in the 22 there were tries out there that we didn’t take,” Townsend agreed. “There was one in the first half when Hamish (Watson) was held up over the line, and if we had taken a better option we would have walked in a try.
“Those are clearly areas where you know improvements could lead to points. But then there are lots of other improvements in defensive sets, attacking decisions and execution.
“In the main our players were excellent, whether it was lineout, scrum, defence, attack, kick-chase. The basis of our game is there and we just want to improve by another five or 10% this week.”
Another test for discipline
The biggest improvement on Saturday was discipline, but Saturday’s referee is England’s Matt Carley, who pinged Scotland 15 times in Dublin in November.
“We have talked about (discipline) a lot, especially around our defence,” said Townsend. “Discipline is a consequence of how you are playing. If you are getting go forward in your attack then it puts their defence under pressure.
“Saturday was a really positive start. We would like to think when teams to put us under pressure we stay calm and composed within our system.”
Scotland team: Stuart Hogg (Exeter, capt); Darcy Graham (Edinburgh), Chris Harris (Gloucester), James lang (Harlequins), Duhan van der Merwe (Edinburgh); Finn Russell (Racing 92), Ali Price (Glasgow Warriors); Rory Sutherland (Edinburgh), George Turner (Glasgow Warriors), Zander Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors); Scott Cummings (Glasgow Warriors), Jonny Gray (Exeter); Blade Thomson (Scarlets), Hamish Watson (Edinburgh), Matt Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors).
Replacements: Dave Cherry (Edinburgh), Oli Kebble (Glasgow Warriors), WP Nel (Edinburgh), Richie Gray (Glasgow Warriors), George Graham (Newcastle Falcons), Scott Steele (Harlequins), Jaco van der Walt (Edinburgh), Huw Jones (Glasgow Warriors).
