Scotland have made four changes in addition to the one enforced by Hamish Watson’s injury and Gregor Townsend senses that the team are set to bounce back from the crushing disappointment of the defeat to Ireland.
An entirely new back row starts against Samoa in Kobe on Monday with Magnus Bradbury, called into the squad officially last week after Watson’s departure, starting immediately at blindside flanker. Jamie Ritchie is restored at open-side and Blade Thomson starts at No 8.
As largely expected, Darcy Graham and Chris Harris come into the backline in place of Tommy Seymour and Duncan Taylor.
The head coach said some of the changes were due to the different opposition, some were in response to the weekend’s debacle in Yokohama.
Townsend said there had been a thorough examination of why the Scots looked “a degree off” in the warm-up on Sunday after what had been one of the best training sessions he’d seen in the days before the Ireland game.
Any suggestion that the players didn’t care enough was “totally wrong”, he said.
“I don’t read (the reaction on social media). Players have said that there’s criticism but that’s what it is, it’s out there; you play for Scotland and you don’t play well you can expect some reaction from people who care a lot for the team.
“You think hard about if it was something in the week before or incidents in the game, but you move on, next week you’re on top of everything and you’ll sense if we’re not there again.
“And I don’t have that sense (this week), I sense the players are really determined to improve. Those selected are delighted and relieved, even more determined if they’ve got a second opportunity, others realising if they didn’t get the selection this week, it’s because they didn’t take their opportunity but backing the team to do all they can in this game.”
The pressure hadn’t changed in terms of what Scotland need to do as a result of the Ireland game.
“If we had won or if we hadn’t won last week, we would still have been in a similar situation,” he said. “There would have been a bit of comfort in knowing you had got points on the board but Samoa and Japan both won their opening games so we always needed to beat them.
“We know we if we don’t win all the next three games we won’t make the quarter-finals. The players are aware of that but they enter every game with the belief and determination to win anyway.”
Scotland have gone from 146 caps of experience on Sunday to just 23 on Monday, but with the youth comes a lot more ballast especially with Bradbury and Thomson.
Bradbury has been with the squad since they got to Japan as cover for Jamie Ritchie and had been on his way back to Edinburgh before Watson’s injury.
“It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster, in and out of the squad,” he admitted. “I enjoy ball carrying and making big hits, so that’s what I focus on,” he said.
“I know going into the Samoa game the game-plan is to carry ball and combat their physical aspects. I enjoy a physical game so hopefully I’ll go well.”
“I’m not sure how the guys felt on Sunday but it’s now about how me, Jamie and Blade react, and how we impose our game on the match on Monday – we’ll see what happens.
“Blade’s something different, something we’ve not had. The way he plays and the skills he has are a fresh intake into the back-row.
“I think when gets going on Monday, he’ll prove he’s supposed to be there.”
Scotland team: S Hogg (Glasgow); D Graham (Edinburgh), C Harris (Newcastle), S Johnson (Glasgow), S Maitland (Saracens); F Russell (Racing 92), G Laidlaw (Clermont-Auvergne); A Dell (Edinburgh), S McInally (Edinburgh, capt), WP Nel (Edinburgh); G Gilchrist (Edinburgh), J Gray (Glasgow); M Bradbury (Edinburgh), J Ritchie (Edinburgh), B Thomson (Scarlets). Replacements: F Brown (Glasgow), G Reid (Ayrshire Bulls), Z Fagerson (Glasgow), S Cummings (Glasgow), R Wilson (Glasgow), G Horne (Glasgow), A Hastings (Glasgow), D Taylor (Saracens).
