Vellacott expected to answer England call

Gloucester scrum-half Ben Vellacott is set to be the second former Scotland under-20 cap in a month to be picked for an England squad, revealed Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend as he unveiled a 40-strong group for the forthcoming NatWest 6 Nations, writes Steve Scott.

Townsend said the “indications” were the 22-year-old, born in Chertsey but qualified for Scotland through his mother, would be included in Eddie Jones’ Six Nations squad to be named later this week.

He follows Newcastle back-rower Gary Graham, son of former Scotland player and coach George, a Scotland under-20s cap included in an England training squad at the beginning of this month.

Neither player is committed to any country until they get on the field. Scotland had approached Vellacott, it seems relatively recently, but were told he’d chosen England.

“We have been in in regular communication with (Ben) but we will wait and see what squad England pick in the next couple of days,” said the coach. “It looks likely he will be with them in the Six Nations, the indications are he will be in their squad.

“So a bit like Gary Graham, he becomes a player we won’t consider.”

Scotland themselves have capped a number of players who featured for other nations at under-20 level, most recently Leicester’s Luke Hamilton in the Autumn Tests, who played for Wales at age group level and the coach predicted that nations competing for dualqualified players was “the new reality.”

“You can understand that if you are playing in England, you are in their system that you are maybe going to be watched more by the England coaches,” continued Townsend.

“It is ultimately a choice the players have to make if they get both options, they have to commit to one of them.

“There is real competition with players who we know are available to us and also available to England. I don’t like using the term ‘our players’, they are not ‘our players’. They played under-20s for us but they are dual-qualified like a number of players are in the game.”

Townsend rejected the idea that the Scots might promote players ahead of schedule to mark them for Scotland or re-launch the Scotland A team to make players commit earlier.

“The only way you would look at adding a Scotland A or England A would be to help your preparations,” he said. “If you were doing it for cynical reasons, I don’t think that is right and the players would see through it anyway.

“Also the internationals take so much out of our players, then they are in the quarter-finals or Europe or the run-in for the play-offs in the PRO14 or the Aviva Premiership. Add in another game in an already crowded season, I don’t think it that would be right.”

Townsend added that in the case of Vellacott and Graham, there were other deserving cases.

“We have a number of scrum-halves, and a number of back rows, who have missed out on the squad,” he pointed out.

“George Horne and Sam HidalgoClyne came close at scrum-half, and Adam Ashe, Josh Strauss, Jamie Ritchie, who was in our November squad, and Matt Smith, who has been playing outstandingly well in the back row.”

Townsend has preferred established internationals to plug the gaps in both positions, recalling former skipper Greig Laidlaw and David Denton to the squad.

Ben Vellacott: represented Scotland at under-20 level.