Mixed news ahead of Scotland’s crunch wooden spoon duel against Italy this weekend.
The Good: Tighthead prop Euan Murray played the full 80 minutes for Northampton in their narrow defeat against Wasps yesterday with no news of any adverse affects. In case we need backup, Moray Low had a pretty decent game for Glasgow against Cardiff on Friday too. Simon Taylor is reported to have played well in his preferred position of Number 8 for Stade at the weekend. Simon Danielli, meanwhile, was in try-scoring form for Ulster.
The Bad: Chris Cusiter seems to have been mauled by some South-Sea Island type playing for Perpignan. We await updates on the status of his knee – he did play on afterwards so hopefully he was taken off at half-time only as a precaution. Kelly Brown suffered a head knock in the Cardiff game while failing to make a tackle on Martyn Williams. In fact, most of Glasgow’s tackling in the first half of that game was bad.
The Ugly: The following all seem to have had pretty mediocre games at the weekend based on the mainstream press reports and the couple of games I saw; Ally Kellock, Ally Hogg, Ben Cairns, Chris Paterson (although these last pair did score a try each) Rory Lawson.
Buried in a rough wooden casket in the desert: To continue the cowboy theme, the following were MIA this weekend having been (presumably) released to their clubs or not in full use by the main squad: Al Strokosch, Scott Gray, Sean Lamont, Al Dickinson (left on the bench for Gloucester), Rob Dewey.
UPDATE: It turns out Rob Dewey has been drafted into the Scotland Sevens squad for Dubai.