An apparently innocuous training injury has robbed the Scotland rugby team of one of its key players ahead of tomorrow’s Calcutta Cup clash at Twickeham and is almost certain to rule him out of the World Cup as well.
Alex Dunbar, the Glasgow Warriors centre, damaged his left knee simply changing direction with nobody around him in the final practice before the team flew to London yesterday.
His loss forced Vern Cotter, the Scotland head coach, to make a last-minute fifth change to the side selected to face England in the RBS Six Nations Championship, alongside moves to beef up the forwards and the inevitable alterations to the backs after Sean Lamont hurt a knee playing for Glasgow and Finn Russell returned from suspension.
It is a shattering blow for Dunbar, one of the undoubted successes of the past 12 months. After he went down he was rushed to hospital where tests quickly established he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament. Repairing it will require surgery and will rule him out for a minimum of six months, but almost certainly longer — nine months is about average, meaning he is unlikely to play again this year.
“He was named originally, but Matt Scott will take his place,” Cotter said. “A change of direction and his knee went out from underneath him.
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“We’re a team who don’t get things easy, this is another example of it. But I think it has tightened the group up — and that will be important when we play this weekend. We’ve got an able replacement who has played really well recently. We’ll miss him [Dunbar] in both attack and defence. He’s one of our best line breakers and has been playing very well up to now, very well.
“He is understandably very upset about it. We’ve seen guys come back from an ACL before, though, so it is just a question of when we get him back.”
Losing Dunbar is a major headache because he is the defensive leader in the backs and has been one of the most potent attacking threats. Scott, who scored twice at the weekend, is a more than capable replacement — he and Dunbar were the settled midfield partnership last season — but he has only recently returned to fitness himself and cannot possibly have the same understanding with Russell, at fly half, or Mark Bennett, the outside centre, that Dunbar developed playing alongside both at club level
Injuries have disrupted preparations all round. Sean Maitland had been pencilled in as the cover for Lamont, but failed to recover from a shoulder problem in time, handing the wing spot to Dougie Fife, who scored Scotland’s opening try of the tournament in Paris. It was not until yesterday morning that Adam Ashe was cleared to take his place on the bench.
Cotter had already decided that because he is expecting a war of attrition up front he would beef up the forwards by recalling Jim Hamilton at lock and David Denton at No 8 and had emphasised the point by putting six forwards and only two backs on the bench. Johnnie Beattie, who has started at No 8 in every game this Six Nations is the emergency cover if two backs are not enough.
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“We don’t have a large number of backs who are at international level — yet,” Cotter added. “Matt [Scott] has stepped straight in, but it means we’ll have to juggle the bench if we get injuries. The group adapts and moves on. It’s an opportunity for Matt Scott; you saw his two tries last weekend, he is ready.”
The injury issues may have temporarily overshadowed the importance of the game, but after the issues on show against Italy in their last outing, Cotter is looking for a substantial improvement this week, against a formidable England side.
“There is the Calcutta Cup and the result two weeks ago, both mean there has been more of an edge to training,” he said. “It is always nice to have an objective. We are two days away from playing for something that we could bring home. We are looking at what we can improve on to show that we have learnt from some of the mistakes we may have made.
“It has been a few years [since Scotland won at Twickenham] and nobody is giving us much of a chance. I can understand that, but we will be measuring our improvements from two weeks ago, those things will help us develop our game and become more competitive.”
Scotland (v England at Twickenham, Saturday): S Hogg (Glasgow Warriors); D Fife (Edinburgh), M Bennett (Glasgow Warriors), M Scott (Edinburgh), T Seymour (Glasgow Warriors); F Russell (Glasgow Warriors), G Laidlaw (Gloucester, captain); A Dickinson (Gloucester), R Ford (Edinburgh), E Murray (Glasgow Warriors), J Hamilton (Saracens), J Gray (Glasgow Warriors), R Harley (Glasgow Warriors), B Cowan (London Irish), D Denton (Edinburgh).
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Replacements: F Brown (Glasgow Warriors), R Grant (Glasgow Warriors), G Cross (London Irish), T Swinson (Glasgow Warriors), J Beattie (Montpellier), A Ashe (Glasgow Warriors), S Hidalgo-Clyne (Edinburgh), G Tonks (Edinburgh) .