After months of speculation, Andy Robinson has finally unveiled the radical, new-look side that he will send out to do battle in his first game as Scotland coach. There are ten changes, some injury-enforced, from the side that started the final game under Frank Hadden but, like his predecessor, Robinson has elected to start the campaign with a gamble by sending the team out to face Fiji on Saturday without Chris Paterson, the record points-scorer and cap-holder.
There is one new cap in Alex Grove, the Worcester centre who impressed Robinson on the summer A-team tour, and a first start for Moray Low, the Glasgow tighthead, who won a couple of caps as a replacement at the tail-end of last season.
“I’ve been working hard to get this stage and this opportunity,” Low said. “It was hard being a replacement last season, I’d go out, sing the national anthem and was ready to go, I just wanted to play but had to sit on the bench for 60 minutes, hold back when I was itching to go. It’s good experience, but I can’t wait to start in front of all my family and friends. It will be a very proud day.”
The fascinating battle over which of the joint captains should start has been won by Chris Cusiter, who will be making his debut as Scotland captain. “I’ve been really pleased with the consistency Cusiter has shown every time he has been on the pitch,” the head coach explained. “He has had a bit of illness, a couple of injuries, but he has performed consistently well. He is a strong runner with the ball and a good passer, the right choice to start this game.
“There were a number of 50-50 calls. The important thing was to get the balance right and get the picture in my mind of a team that was going to perform at the weekend. What we have is a side with a degree of physicality. I have been delighted with the way the forwards have been performing.”
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Robinson was without a number of players who might have been close to automatic choices in Euan Murray, Jim Hamilton and Max Evans, while Ben Cairns dropped out last week with a knee strain. That made the choice at outside centre a straight battle between Grove and Nick De Luca, who gets the consolation of making the bench, which he will share with three former Scotland captains in Mike Blair, Jason White and Paterson but where there are also two uncapped players in Kyle Traynor, the Edinburgh prop, and Richie Vernon, the Glasgow back row.
Robinson admitted that leaving Paterson out was the toughest call he had to make, saying that the competition is so intense that Hugo Southwell, in fantastic form for Stade Français since recovering from a knee injury, does not even make the 22.
“Paterson is in the squad and will have a part to play,” Robinson said. “Phil Godman has kicked well at international level. I believe in Phil as an international goalkicker. It is up to him to take the opportunity on match day. I have no issue with Godman being there from the start, he is a very, very good goalkicker. He had 81 per cent in the Magners League last year and 71 per cent for Scotland. I’m looking at the way we are going to perform over the whole 80 minutes, the way we want to approach this game.”
In the end, Rory Lamont won the battle for the full-back position, his strength in fielding kicks and ability to find room running from the back being put forward as the crucial factors in giving him the edge in selection.
He is joined in the back three by Sean Lamont, his older brother, and Simon Danielli, who, along with Nathan Hines, is one of the two survivors in the starting XV from the team that beat Fiji the last time these two countries met, in the 2003 Rugby World Cup when it took Paterson’s conversion two minutes from the end to give Scotland the lead for the first time in the game.
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Up front, the selection of John Beattie at No 8 had been obvious after Simon Taylor made himself unavailable — then was injured — and Allister Hogg failed to make the squad at all. He will be joined by Alastair Kellock, the Glasgow captain, who partners Hines in the second row.
Scotland: R Lamont (Toulon); S Lamont (Scarlets), A Grove (Worcester), G Morrison (Glasgow), S Danielli (Ulster); P Godman (Edinburgh), C Cusiter (Glasgow, captain); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), M Low (Glasgow), N Hines (Leinster), A Kellock (Glasgow), A Strokosch (Gloucester), J Barclay (Glasgow), J Beattie (Glasgow). Replacements: D Hall (Glasgow), K Traynor (Edinburgh), J White (Clermont Auvergne), R Vernon (Glasgow), M Blair (Edinburgh), C Paterson (Edinburgh), N De Luca (Edinburgh).