FIT FOR PURPOSE
Watson ready for Aussies after runout against Tonga
BRITISH and Irish Lion Hamish Watson has told Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend he is fit and ready to play the full 80 minutes against Australia after coming through a glorified fitness test against Tonga.
A niggling groin injury meant the flanker hadn’t played a single minute of rugby since coming off the bench for the Lions in the first Test win over South Africa in late July until he made his comeback against the South Sea Islanders last weekend.
Townsend said it was not his original intention to pitch Watson straight into action against the Tongans but, with a lack of opportunities to test his fitness at club level, he decided the Edinburgh star would play the first half and come off at the break.
Watson played his part in helping Scotland to a 36-9 lead at half-time on their way to a 60-14 victory. More importantly for Townsend, he looked sharp and came through the 40 minutes injury free.
‘My groin has been bothering me for a while, so it was great to get some time off after the Lions tour and have a good bit of a rehab block as well,’ said Watson. ‘My comeback maybe looks a bit rushed at the end of it as we sort of ran out of club games for me to come back in.
‘It was probably not the ideal circumstances to come back into international rugby but it was good to get 40 minutes under my belt.
‘It was pre-planned for me to have limited game time but I definitely felt like I could have carried on playing. My groin was feeling good and the plan was to take me off while it was feeling good.
‘I wasn’t pushed to the limits to the extent I felt I couldn’t play any more. I felt I could have gone on in that second half.
‘The reality is that a player is probably never 100 per cent going into a game but you have to be fighting fit, whether that is against Tonga, Australia or South Africa, and I feel I could play the 80 minutes if selected to start against Australia.’
A fit Watson will always be one of the first names on Townsend’s team sheet and the game at BT Murrayfield on Saturday will see him come face-to-face with another of the best sevens in the world, Australia captain Michael Hooper.
‘Hooper has done well at international level and is a great player,’ said Watson, who is the same age as his rival at 30 but has only 41 caps to the Australian’s 121. ‘That’s why we love these games as you get to test yourself against world-class players like him.
‘Australia have had a line of great sevens, like David Pocock and Hooper’s a top, top player as well. Whenever you watch those guys, you appreciate how good they are.
‘I’m the same age as some of those boys, so it’s not so much that I was looking up to them but you do appreciate how good they are and it’s going to be a great challenge for me at the weekend.’
Although Watson was disappointed not to feature for the Lions in the final two losing Tests against the Springboks, he feels a better all-round player for his experience in South Africa.
‘You return from Lions tours a better player without really knowing it at the time,’ he said. ‘It’s not like when you go away on a Lions tour that you are learning anything new when you are there.
‘But just being around those sort of players, being in that sort of atmosphere and environment for eight weeks, subconsciously you are picking stuff up.
‘It helps that we have eight Scottish boys coming into camp now who will, hopefully, bring things back to the group that will help them out.
‘The Scottish Lions got a lot of confidence from that tour and came back realising how good our group is as well. We’re out there with the so-called best players in the UK and Ireland.
There will also be confidence in our camp knowing there were a lot of our boys who could have been out there, as they were good enough, but didn’t go. So, overall, we are pretty confident with this squad moving forward.’
Watson, part of the Scotland team that beat Australia 53-24 on their last visit to Murrayfield in November 2017, believes his side won’t have such an easy ride this time.
‘The last time, they got a red card pretty early in the game, so it was hard for them to stay in that match and we ran away with it,’ he said. ‘We know that’s not going to be the case this time round, so we just have to do what we do well.
‘On Sunday, we’ve got to contain them first as they’ve got a lot of attacking threat and our aim is to give them a slightly tougher ride than they’ve had recently.’