What have Alex Grove and Ben Cairns got to do to get a shot in this Six Nations? And for that matter Ben Foden? What does Graeme Morrison have to do to get dropped?
Still, good to see Evans kept in the Scotland team, even if I suspect that De Luca’s sometimes hot head will have to work hard not to do something rash in the fire of a Calcutta Cup encounter. Hopefully he can show some of the attacking verve that brought him on the scene a couple of years ago rather than the Test level ignominy that soon followed. The bench has a bit of fire to it even in the absence of the big Stroker through injury and you know Rory Lawson is a more than capable deputy at scrum half, but I would have liked to see Cairns in there somewhere given his versatility and current form.
The England team looks solid if unremarkable (sound familiar?) and I think going into the weekend it is anybody’s game – I just hope the Scotland crowd turn up…
Scotland Team to face England at Murrayfield on Saturday (k.o 5pm):
H Southwell (Stade Francais); S Lamont (Scarlets), N De Luca (Edinburgh), G Morrison (Glasgow), M Evans (Glasgow); D Parks (Glasgow), C Cusiter (Glasgow, captain); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), E Murray (Northampton); J Hamilton (Edinburgh), A Kellock (Glasgow); K Brown (Glasgow), J Barclay (Glasgow), J Beattie (Glasgow).
Replacements: S Lawson (Gloucester), G Cross (Edinburgh), N Hines (Leinster), A MacDonald (Edinburgh), R Lawson (Gloucester), P Godman (Edinburgh), S Danielli (Ulster).
England: Delon Armitage; Mark Cueto, Mathew Tait, Riki Flutey, Ugo Monye; Jonny Wilkinson, Danny Care; Tim Payne, Dylan Hartley, Dan Cole; Louis Deacon, Steve Borthwick (captain); James Haskell, Joe Worsley, Nick Easter.
Replacements: Steve Thompson, David Wilson, Courtney Lawes, Lewis Moody, Ben Youngs, Toby Flood, Ben Foden.
2 Responses
Dissapointed for Cairns but team looks balanced with Morrison I suppose.
I think the arena will be a cauldron on Saturday though so hopefully that’ll give us something that wee bit extra!!
Couldn’t agree more about Cairns. I was at Edinburgh versus Ospreys a couple of weekends ago, where he played an absolute stormer (at full back). I think his play-making, gritty determination and (perhaps most of all given current Scotland performances) good hands, would strengthen the team where they really need it just now.