Deflated Dell puts Zebre fiasco behind him in bid to shine for Scotland
ALLAN DELL will go from the low of being part of one of the most embarrassing defeats in the history of Edinburgh Rugby to the high of linking up with the Scotland squad tomorrow as he takes a step closer to fulfilling his dream of turning out for the national side.
The South African-born loose-head prop is the only uncapped player in the 31-strong autumn Test squad with injuries to Gordon Reid and Alasdair Dickinson giving him a great chance of making his international debut against Australia at Murrayfield in a fortnight.
As he stood shellshocked after the humiliating 19-14 Pro12 defeat to Zebre, it took him a while to refocus on Scotland, who have a training camp for the first three days of this week.
That was understandable considering his team had just been beaten by an Italian side that lost all of their first five Guinness Pro12 matches up until their visit to Murrayfield.
They gained their first win ever on Scottish soil in what was interim head coach Duncan Hodge’s first defeat in four matches.
Dell, who qualifies for Scotland through his Paisley-born grandmother, was one of the few players who came close to putting in a decent performance. Not that it mattered to the 24-year-old.
‘I don’t really want to go into the Scotland camp after a loss like that as I would want to try to rectify my mistakes with Edinburgh first,’ said Dell.
‘It was a team effort that went wrong and I don’t want to let someone else try to fix the mistakes I was involved in.
‘Zebre got more than 80 points put on them two weeks ago, last weekend it was more than 50. I don’t know if there was a bit of arrogance, but we definitely need to fix things.
‘Take nothing away from Zebre as they came with a game-plan and executed what they wanted to do correctly. ‘But in all honestly, against a side like that at home, with our ambitions, we should be putting them away.
‘What made that naive and poor performance worse was that last weekend you could see how happy everyone was after we beat a very good Harlequins side in the European Challenge Cup.
‘On Friday night, it was the complete opposite end of the spectrum. You’ve got games where
you’re elated like the Harlequins one, and then you get humbled against Zebre.
‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be involved in the Scotland training camp tomorrow. But, with Edinburgh, we have the Ulster game first before Scotland play Australia — and at club level we have to improve.’
There is no guarantee that Dell will play against Ulster as it is traditional if someone is going to make his international debut to rest him the week before. The only two specialist loose-heads in the current Scotland squad apart from Dell are his Edinburgh team-mate Dickinson, who has not played since he picked up a hamstring injury on Scotland duty against Japan in the summer.
Glasgow Warriors’ Reid missed his side’s win over Treviso on Friday and a scan this week will reveal how badly he injured his back the previous week in the European Champions Cup loss to Munster.
With two men possibly down, there is even more reason to wrap Dell in cotton wool until the Australia game — just in case.
If he does make his debut, it will be third-time lucky for the front-row player who has been in two Scotland squads previously but has never made a match-day squad.
‘I have been involved with Scotland before in 2014 when I was invited into the wider training group but I was released back to Edinburgh just before the Argentina game and broke my leg against Leinster the week before, so that was the end of that,’ added Dell.
‘I was also included in the wider 2015 World Cup squad and, although that was exciting, I was nowhere near getting selected.
‘It is really unfortunate that Dicko’s injury has been so long, but there are opportunities for other guys coming into the Scotland squad off the back of that.
‘It would be an honour to play for Scotland but for now I’m just going to put my shoulder to the wheel at the training camp and work hard.’