Bit of a news digest this week, hope you are enjoying the off season!
Andy Robinson has announced his 44 man Scotland training squad for later in the month including all four Lions, several fresh faced youngsters like Ruaridh Jackson, Alex Grove and Richie Gray, and missing Simon Taylor who has requested not to be involved [...]

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This would be the team I announce tomorrow, and here’s why:
15 – Chris Paterson. This was trickier than I thought, which is a good thing. Hugo has been on fire recently, but before the recent rib injury, so was Mossy. Frank Hadden is looking for maturity of decision making from this team, having identified that [...]

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While I was posting that latest magnum opus, the team was announced for the weekend. Brother for brother swap on the wing, the rest stay as is including the bench. Malkovich Webster and the big Stroker stay in the player pool as cover for a few potential injury cases (Hines, Hamilton, Evans). Sadly no recovery [...]

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After the widely derided World Cup ‘B’ Team played against New Zealand on their last visit to Murrayfield, it will be interesting to test our full XV against the might All Blacks. Your fearless Scottish Rugby Blog correspondent will be in attendance. But can we (unlike Scubbsy) man up, and get a result?
Yes We Can:

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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 and Hines [...]

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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 of [...]

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So what happened at the weekend then? Due to prior commitments to liver destruction at a friend’s wedding I didn’t catch much of the action and I’m fairly sure Al missed it too, that is if he made it home without falling into the river. However from the sound of things the Edinburgh scoreline pretty [...]

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Good News: Glasgow beat the Dragons, in what is often referred to as “one for the purists” – a fairly unexciting match played in appalling weather. Still, Dan Parks kicked his goals and marshalled Glasgow to a decent away win against a Dragons side who had talked themselves up a bit in the pre-season. Mark [...]

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In other news, pig seen taking off from Heathrow…
So the boys did it against all odds and most of the expectations. We drunk rather a lot of beer and ended up in a Chinese restaurant with menus in, well, Chinese. I think we ate Jellyfish. Al is so hungover that he has gone to France [...]

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