All change as Toony gets set for first match

THE names are the same, so are the national anthems. Yet when Italy and Scotland face off in Singapore on Saturday, the changes from their last meeting in March are going to heavily outweigh the similarities.

Scotland have a new coaching team, Italy have decided to rest their veteran. Scotland have many of their best players away on the British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand. Both sides have players returning from injury as well as others who have dropped out after getting hurt.

Even the shirts are likely to be different with Italy technically the home side this time.

In the circumstances Gregor Townsend, who is announcing his team this morning, has had to strive for continuity while being forced to find new solutions in positions that had looked settled under Vern Cotter, his predecessor.

Without Tommy Seymour and Stuart Hogg, away with the Lions, and injured Sean Maitland, the big headache has to be the back three where only Tim Visser has a solid international background.

Greg Tonks was not in the original squad but has the most experience in recent months of playing full back, though admittedly at London Irish in the second tier in England.

Ruaridh Jackson has struggled for game time all season, while Duncan Taylor is only recently back from injury.

The coach has a few pretty simple either-or choices at centre and on the wing opposite Visser, that don’t fundamentally change things from the pattern Cotter established – Lee Jones or Damien Hoyland on the wing?

Alex Dunbar or Matt Scott as the midfield power man? – and up front has the benefit of a reasonably settled unit with Tim Swinson slotting in for Richie Gray and Josh Strauss likely to return as the main ball carrier.

The real test for Townsend, as he takes on a something of an unknown opposition in Conor O’Shea’s young, experimental side, will be not so much on the selection front but in seeing what they produce when they play.

There were a lot of similarities between Glasgow and Scotland even when Townsend was at the club and Cotter in charge of the national side.

Now that Townsend has moved up and with half the squad on tour coming from his old club, the key is going to be doing the same things better rather than changing his style.

Townsend has admitted that he did not much enjoy his last experience of international coaching, when he was backs coach first to Frank Hadden and then to Andy Robinson.

He hated not being able to get into a tracksuit every day in the long gaps between international windows.

This time, though, he has been hands-on with the team for three weeks ahead of his first game and the message coming from the players is that they are being asked to do many of the same things they were doing at Glasgow, but do them harder, faster and better.

So you can add the likely playing style to the list of similarities from the March match with Italy.

Scotland aim to win playing quick rugby: attacking the breakdown, using their big ball carriers and then whizzing the ball to the outside channels.

If that sounds familiar, it is because it is. Townsend and Cotter created it between them as club and national coaches and now it is up to Townsend to take it up a notch.