Scots extras must rise to occasion in time of need

IT’S time. Time for the ‘other guys’ to make their mark. Your country needs you. The assorted squad extras given only limited game time during this Six Nations must always have known their chance would come. Well, as each new injury bulletin lands with a sickening thud upon the hopes of a rugby nation, here comes opportunity. Are you ready? Now that Josh Strauss has joined captain Greig Laidlaw in being ruled out of the remaining Six Nations matches, it is entirely possible that Vern Cotter’s last hurrah will not be the primal victory scream envisaged following that opening win over Ireland. The only way to avoid his final campaign ending in a whimper is for certain squad stalwarts to step up and get right up in the faces of a Wales team already rubbing their hands in anticipation of a cushy afternoon at Murrayfield. Saturday’s clash was always going to be pivotal. Now it feels like a make-or-break moment for every inch of progress made under Scotland’s Kiwi head coach. Beat the Welsh and that target of three Championship wins looks easy, with Italy at home to come. Lose and, with Twickenham up next, we’ll all be preparing to slip into our well-rehearsed consolation mode, desperately seeking reasons for hope amid the wreckage of another failed campaign. Now, after losing Laidlaw and Strauss, we need Scarlets star John Barclay to shrug off his own fitness concerns in order to face some of his team-mates on Saturday. We could do with all of the others who suffered heavy knocks in Paris — John Hardie, Alex Dunbar and Fraser Brown, to name just a few — turning up ready for this one, too. Cotter either needs his walking wounded to prove themselves capable of sprinting — or a whole band of second-string players to emerge from the shadows, eager to perform heroics.