Gregor Townsend has named a 45-player squad for the upcoming 2026 Quilter Nations Series, featuring three uncapped forwards and the return of a few familiar names. Scotland will face the USA, New Zealand, Argentina and Tonga across four weekends in November.
Among the new faces are Liam McConnell, Harri Morris and Alexander Masibaka. McConnell captained Emerging Scotland against Italy last year, while hooker Morris also featured in that match. Masibaka toured with Scotland in the summer and now looks set for a proper crack at senior Test level. All three are part of a growing pool of young forwards Townsend has been quietly bedding in over the past year. Will he be able to unlock a new generation of aggressive men up front to complement the dazzling backline? Can anyone?
Sione Tuipulotu returns from his Lions exploits to captain the squad, a role he would have held in the 2024 Six Nations if not for injury.
Edinburgh skipper Magnus Bradbury makes a long-awaited return to the Scotland fold, having last played for the national side on the 2022 tour to Argentina. He joins a loaded back-row group alongside Jamie Ritchie, Matt Fagerson, Rory Darge, Jack Dempsey, Andy Onyeama-Christie, Josh Bayliss, Gregor Brown, and the uncapped duo McConnell and Masibaka.
In the second row, Scott Cummings is back from Lions duty and will link up with Glasgow teammates Max Williamson and Alex Samuel, plus Edinburgh stalwarts Grant Gilchrist and Marshall Sykes. Gregor Brown may well find a home in the second row if he’s used as a utility off the bench.
At hooker, George Turner returns from Japanese exile and heads a group that includes Edinburgh trio Ewan Ashman, Patrick Harrison, and Harri Morris, with Dylan Richardson also rewarded for strong form in the back row where he’s been playing for Edinburgh but is likely to find more use as a hooker for Scotland as Ashman has not yet made the shirt his own.
The mighty Zander Fagerson returns to the squad after his Lions tour was cut short through injury, joining a front-row unit featuring Pierre Schoeman, Rory Sutherland, Nathan McBeth, Murphy Walker, D’Arcy Rae, and Elliot Millar Mills.
As you would expect, the backs have a familiar look. Duhan van der Merwe, closing in on his 50th cap, is joined by Darcy Graham, Kyle Steyn, Arron Reed, Blair Kinghorn, and Kyle Rowe as the back-three options. The midfield features Rory Hutchinson – who will reunite with new Scotland defence coach Lee Radford – , Sione Tuipulotu, Stafford McDowall, Ollie Smith, and Tom Jordan (now at Bristol), giving Townsend plenty of flexibility between power and playmaking. The big name to miss out is of course Huw Jones who is recovering from surgery.
At fly-half, Finn Russell, Adam Hastings, and Fergus Burke offer three contrasting approaches, while Ben White, George Horne, and Jamie Dobie continue as the established scrum-half trio.
With four Tests on the bounce, managing workloads will be key, and Townsend clearly wants to get a proper look at some of the younger forwards coming through. The inclusion of players like McConnell and Masibaka suggests the long-term picture is never far from his mind but it would be surprising if he strays far from the tried and tested for the big fixtures. The return of Andy Onyeama-Christie after a horrific leg injury is particularly welcome and as we’ve seen in previous years he often forces his way into the conversation.
Expect the senior core to feature heavily once the All Blacks arrive in town and others perhaps to rotate back to their clubs, but the earlier games could see a fair bit of rotation. On paper, it’s a strong and balanced group – and if nothing else, there are worse problems to have than too many back-row options.
Backs: Fergus Burke, Jamie Dobie, Darcy Graham, Adam Hastings, Rory Hutchinson, George Horne, Tom Jordan, Blair Kinghorn, Stafford McDowall, Kyle Rowe, Arron Reed, Finn Russell, Ollie Smith, Kyle Steyn, Ross Thompson, Sione Tuipulotu (capt), Duhan van der Merwe, Ben White.
Forwards: Ewan Ashman, Josh Bayliss, Magnus Bradbury, Gregor Brown, Scott Cummings, Rory Darge, Jack Dempsey, Matt Fagerson, Zander Fagerson, Grant Gilchrist, Patrick Harrison, Nathan McBeth, Alexander Masibaka, Liam McConnell, Elliot Millar Mills, Harri Morris, Andy Onyeama-Christie, D’Arcy Rae, Dylan Richardson, Jamie Ritchie, Alex Samuel, Pierre Schoeman, Rory Sutherland, Marshall Sykes, George Turner, Murphy Walker, Max Williamson.
19 responses
Team I’d go with for the big matches:
Kinghorn – Graham – Hutchinson – Tuipolotu – Steyn – Russell – White – Dempsey – Ritchie – Bradbury – Williamson – Cummings – Fagerson – Ashman – Schoeman
Jordan – Dobie – Fagerson – Christie – Brown – Rae – Sutherland – Turner
Disappointed not to see Craig Redpath in the squad, he’s too good a player to leave out & has never let us down. Ewan Johnson is also playing at a very high level but again is ignored. It would be an even stronger squad with those two included.
If it was Cameron Redpath it would be even better.
Redpath too small for International Rugby, needs to bulk up and add physicality to his game.
Absolute nonsense, he’s 6 foot 2″ & weighs 95 kilos, I don’t know who you are thinking about. He won the English Premiership with Bath & he’s already scored two international tries for Scotland. He should be in the squad.
My recollection of Cameron Redpath is positive. On the days where he was used as impact from the bench, it worked. We have an abundance of high quality scottish qualified players around the globe ATM. Players who stand out at club level. We now need to continue to win the game , on the pitch to re-enforce confidence in our ability to compete.
there are some strange make-ups of numbers in the backs,
3 9’s – Dobie/Horne/White
5 10’s – Hastings/Finn/Jordon/Burke and thompson
5 wingers (couple who can fit into 15)
1 15 – BK
2 12s – Sione and Stafford
1 13 – in Rory H.
theres going to be a lot of moving about with people’s ‘second position’ for these tests.
The gaffer has a thing about utility players , it has been his way for years. Works at Glasgow , will it be sustainable and a trend !
Team not selected
Harry Paterson – Kerr Johnston – Huw Jones – Cam Redpath – Ross McCann – Ben Healy – Ali Price – Ben Muncaster – Hamish Watson – Euan Ferrie – Jare Oguntibeju – Ewan Johnson – Fin Richardson – Johnny Matthews – Jamie Bhatti
Cameron Scott – Gus Warr – Luke Crosbie – Alex Craig – Sam Skinner – Javan Sebastian – Alec Hepburn – Dave Cherry
Not a bad team! There are also the following Scotland caps that could be in the mix:
Freddy Douglas, Johny Gray, Chris Harris, Will Hurd, Cam Henderson,
Jamie Hodgson, Robbie Smith, Ben Vellacott
I think Huw would be in the mix if he wasn’t recovering from surgery!
I feel very positive that we can have a great autumn, in fact , for once , I am looking forward to the All Blacks, I would be happier if Huw Jones was available. We have strength, we have depth.
All of the Welsh matches are being shown on S4C for free . Does anyone know why this isn’t being done by a Scottish channel ?
Not sure, I think S4C has a deal to get Welsh language coverage which wouldn’t be under the rights that presumably TNT pay for blanket coverage of the Autumn. I imagine the short answer is BBC Alba has no money to do the equivalent?
I appreciate your thoughts and your very likely right. I’d hope the the BBC wouldn’t discriminate the value between Welsh and Scottish language and culture by funding S4C more than BBC Alba .
The sad thing is that in many Scottish house holds the game of rugby isn’t important enough for them to pay twice to view . So it doesn’t help grow the sport for younger members of those families that might have got the incentive to try playing the game.
I’d like to see someone from the SRU and BBC Alba address the discrimination against Scottish cultural television at the BBC.
Does anyone know what needs to happen over the next few weeks for us to scrape into the top 6 ahead of the rankings being locked before the RWC draw?
Assuming we lose to NZ I guess we need to win all our other games (including AUS and ARG) and hope ARG and AUS lose ranking points by getting another couple of defeats. Guess we need England, Wales or Ireland to do us a favour by beating them. France beating Australia would also be good.
*Correction we don’t play AUS.
Unlikely but Wales upsetting Argentina would be big in terms of rankings points so hopefully Tandy can do us a favour.
I am not sure what Matthews needs to do to get selected. I can understand Toony wanting to try others and see how they cope , so , can we assume Matthews is already experienced enough to be in the 6N squad.
I will cringe if, in future years I hear the words ” he is just lacking some international exposure”.
I see Ollie Kebble, the former Glasgow Warrior, is playing for the Barbarians against the All Blacks, there’s a name from the past. Currently playing with Oyonnax.