‘Junior All Blacks’ a distant memory as Blade brings cutting edge to Scotland’s pack options

● Scarlets forward won’t face Wales ● Johnson, Skinner also eye first caps

Blade Thomson’s eligibility to play for Scotland could not be described as “knife-edge”, with a grandfather from Wishaw after all, but the fact New Zealand’s “second XV” haven’t played a game since 2009 makes things a lot smoother.

The towering 6ft 6in, 17-stone forward from Auckland played for New Zealand Under-20s’ junior World Cup winning side of 2010. One of the games was against Wales U20, who were the Principality’s designated “capture” team in terms of Test qualification. Thankfully for Scotland, New Zealand had named the now mythical Junior All Blacks as their second team – though, it has to be said, not much more mythical than England Saxons, Irish Wolfhounds or, for that matter, Scotland A.

It means the 27-year-old can join up with Gregor Townsend’s squad for the autumn internationals, albeit not the first on 3 November against Wales, the country in which he now plays his rugby for Scarlets.

Former Hurricanes man Thomson, who can play lock, blindside or No 8, adds some heft to Towsend’s pack options

0 Blade Thomson, seen here in action for Scarlets, will join up with Gregor Townsend’s squad for all but one of the autumn Tests.

and, in relative terms, is not as controversial as some of the now routine overseas born call-ups to the national rugby squad.

No Channel Islands-born grandparent like Budge Pountney or the Grannygate farce of Dave Hilton here. Such allegiance switches are so par for the course now, however, that it was barely notable that the

three new faces in Scotland’s squad for the Tests against Wales, Fiji, South Africa and Argentina hailed from New Zealand, Australia, and Devon as Thomson was joined in the 40-man pool by Glasgow’s Queensland-born centre Sam Johnson and Exeter Chiefs lock/back row Sam Skinner.

Thomson moved to the Scarlets this season after reportedly

turning down an approach from Dave Rennie at Glasgow. A four-time Maori All Black, he made it clear playing for Scotland was still an aim when he arrived in the UK, admitting: “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it.”

He won’t feature in that first extra Test against the Welsh, with Scarlets, predictably, not releasing their new recruit

when they have no obligation to do so.

“It is outside the world rugby window,” said Townsend at this week’s squad announcement.

“Scarlets are playing Edinburgh that weekend so it would be nice of [Scarlets coach] Wayne Pivac to say to Blade you are available but we know that is not going to happen. The rules are definitely in place for English and French based teams and with the Pro14 it is just bad timing that our teams, Glasgow and Edinburgh, plus the Scarlets are playing that weekend, otherwise it would be a free weekend.”

The inclusions of Thomson and Skinner give Townsend options in the second and back rows after the setback of losing 66-cap veteran lock Richie Gray in addition to the versatile Tim Swinson.

On Toulouse forward Gray, who will undergo surgery, Townsend said: “Richie had come back and played against Agen two weeks ago [before his latest injury]. It was going to be tough for him to get back up to speed. That was still the hope but now he’s going to be out for a few months we are losing an experienced player.

“It’s his other hip. He had the chance to rest [a previous injury] in the summer. He had a pre-season game and was much better but then his other hip flared up and he missed the first six games of the season.

“He played two weeks ago and unfortunately, even though he played well for 60 minutes, the reaction at training the next week means that he needs to have surgery.

“It’s a blow for him, a blow for us, he’s our most experienced forward after Ross Ford and John Barclay, who is not in the squad [injured]. But we believe the surgery will be a success and he’ll be back around Six Nations time. Obviously there is a big period of rugby from Six Nations on to World Cup. We’re backing him and supporting him to come back to the level we know he’s capable of.”