Scotland’s No 9 rivals are tough to separate
THE FACT that Scotland won’t name their captain until Thursday, waiting until the starting XV is finalised before making the call on an official stand-in for injured skipper Greig Laidlaw, rather sums up the lot of any Six Nations coach midway through the campaign.
Vern Cotter certainly faces a few tricky decisions ahead of Saturday’s home game against Wales as he looks to replace both Josh Strauss — a ball-carrying No 8 back to his best against France — and, more crucially, the skipper and starting scrum-half who makes the whole team tick.
Assuming nobody falls down the stairs at the Oriam Performance Centre where the Scots now do the hard work ahead of match day, the captaincy call seems a straight choice between Jonny Gray and John Barclay, with the former maybe just edging it on the grounds of guaranteed selection.
Less straightforward, but arguably more important than the identity of the player selected to take the odd telling-off from the referee, is the question of who gets the No 9 jersey.
Both Ali Price and Henry Pyrgos — team-mates and rivals with Glasgow and now Scotland — will almost certainly play against Wales, with one beginning the match and the other ending it, according to assistant coach Matt Taylor.
But the starting scrum-half, the man asked to dictate the pace of the game, identify Welsh weaknesses, organise defences and launch surprise attacks in enemy territory? You’d better get that one right.
Taylor, the Scotland and Glasgow coach who knows both Price and Pyrgos extremely well, finds it hard to separate the pair as he lists their contrasting qualities, explaining: ‘Ali is a tremendously exciting player with ball in hand. He’s got that turn of speed off the mark that really catches teams off guard.
‘I look at the example of him igniting the Georgia game with that try late on. That’s a really good example of what he can do.
‘Having been involved with Henry for a number of years at Glasgow and Scotland, I know that he’s a very good organiser who brings the rest of the group forward. He’s very confident in how he plays, what he does, his structures and things like that. And he’s a leader, as well.’
In case that sounds as if Pyrgos will automatically get the nod because he’s a more natural replacement for the crocked captain, Taylor cautions: ‘Look, he’s an exceptional leader.
‘But I think those two players will be picked on what we want to get out of the game, first and foremost, rather than Henry getting picked just because he’s one of the senior leaders at Glasgow and with Scotland. It will be about what we want to get out of that position in the game.
‘They’ve both worked with Finn Russell often enough at Glasgow — and they’re both on the same wavelength as Finn. They both have parts to play at Glasgow. Again, I think that’s a strength.
‘To have guys who work with our stand-off week in, week out, as well as playing club games with him, that has to be a bonus.
‘There has been a bit of discussion among the coaches about who is going to start. It depends on how we want to start the game — and how we want to finish the game.’
Sean Maitland, Mark Bennett, John Hardie, Ryan Wilson and Barclay are all expected to be fit for the weekend after suffering a variety of bangs, bumps, twists and thumps.
In terms of basic talent available for selection, these bits of good news presumably make it a bit easier for Cotter to cope with losing both Laidlaw and Strauss for the duration.
Barclay deputised for Laidlaw when the captain went off early in Paris, before handing the armband to Jonny Gray when he left the field himself. Read into that what you will — but remember that Barclay might not get a starting place, depending on how Cotter juggles his back-row options.
‘Listen, it’s not great when our captain is injured,’ admitted Taylor. ‘But in rugby that’s just the reality of the game. You can’t be dwelling on who’s injured and who’s not involved. You’ve got to be happy for the guys coming in, working on strengthening them and building them up.
‘We can’t go into the game and say: “Oh, we haven’t got Greig, we haven’t got Straussy”. We need to look at the positives. We’ve had a few meetings and Vern has talked to the leaders. He has developed what we want to get out of the game, how we want to start, how we want to finish.
‘In terms of the captaincy, John probably speaks more than Jonny, although Jonny does speak more than you might expect. Jonny is more of a “doing” captain. Barclay is a doing captain but he probably talks more. That’s the main difference.
‘I think you can have all kinds of captains. Over the years, looking at rugby or other sports, there have been different types.
‘As long as the team is functioning well with that person as captain, it doesn’t really matter what the style is. If your style of leadership suits the team and works, that’s what counts.’