Further gloom in the scrum half department as McMillan has picked up a training injury too, although he is expected to recover and Lawson may not be as bad as first feared. Interesting to see NZ have picked Carter and Smith in the centre for the warm up against Oz. Looking at their squad backs, [...]

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Bad news for Scotland’s squad preparations for the “autumn” (it’s already winter here in the north) internationals came yesterday with announcements that scrum halves Chris Cusiter (thumb), Rory Lawson (ribs) and centre Graeme Morrison would all be unavailable. Luckily Mark McMillan is able to step into the breach – he’s been in form for Glasgow, [...]

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Scott Gray makes a surprise and (if he continues current form) welcome return to the Scotland National squad, while in form Max Evans and Geoff Cross make up the uncapped contingent. No real suprises otherwise but a few points: Good to see Hadden’s picked some genuine 7s. Not too many locks there though – Hamilton [...]

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Bit of breaking news: ahead of Frank Hadden’s announcement of his reduced squad to face New Zealand next month, lock Scott MacLeod has thrown his availability into severe doubt with the revelations that he has reportedly failed a second drug test, this time for “higher than permitted levels of testosterone”. MacLeod has insisted he is [...]

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Glasgow 9-15 Toulose In the first half this was there for the taking, but by the time the second half got into its stride so did Toulose, With a couple of moments of typical clinical brilliance from Jauzion and Skrela forcing Glasgow to chase the result, and they actually came very close on a couple [...]

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IN: Ben Cairns – Edinburgh – will he combine with De Luca on his return and revitalise Edinburgh’s cutting edge? Dan “Parko” Parks – Glasgow – will he return Glasgow’s cutting edge or boot everything in sight? Thom Evans – Glasgow – back from plastic surgery (well, he was in a boy band) to show [...]

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Frank Hadden has announced that IRB Player of the Year Nominee Mike Blair will continue to captain Scotland for the Autumn Internationals, and that the SRU has also come to some sort of agreement with Premier Rugby over the release of Scotland players based at Guinness Premiership clubs. While it’s not as much as Hadden [...]

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I’ll keep this brief as the idea of reliving Saturday’s Edinburgh v Leinster match is putting me off my lunch! Glorious day, sun splitting the sky, a good Autumn wind and, with Mrs Al off visiting relatives, a free pass to go and do with the day whatever I desire.  For once Edinburgh are playing at [...]

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So we wouldn’t be serving you, the Scottish Rugby blog reader (there may only be one of you), correctly if we didn’t give you a run-down on where and when you can catch up with all the Scottish players on show this weekend in the world’s biggest and best club rugby tournament. Last night the [...]

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It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster over the past few weeks, with more ups and downs on the Scottish rugby scene than the Dow Jones. Firstly we saw Edinburgh put in a storming performance to dispatch Llanelli while Glasgow failed to beat Irish development side Connacht. Then off the pitch there was a similar [...]

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