HARD HITTING VIEW

Gregor Townsend announced his first training squad of the new season this week.

As ever, the Scottish coach sprung a few surprises – not only in terms of the players he included, but also regarding the players who were left out.

Of course, given that the first autumn international falls outside the international window, non-Scottishbased players are excluded from the squad

That means that Lions Stuart Hogg, Duhan van der Merwe, Chris Harris, Rory Sutherland and Finn Russell are all absentees, so Scotland will need a new captain for their first match against Tonga on 30th October.

Making their debuts in the training squad are Edinburgh players Marshall Sykes, Pierre Schoeman and Charlie Savala, as well as South Africa based utility forward, Dylan Richardson.

Most of these players are unfamiliar names to many Scottish fans – perhaps with the exception of Schoeman – hence Townsend’s surprise.

That Ben Vellacott has been left out is the other surprise, given his good form with Edinburgh so far this season.

Although there is good strengthin-depth at scrum-half with Ali Price, George Horne and Jamie Dobie all named in the squad.

Another relatively new face to the training squad is Matt Currie who made his debut for Edinburgh last season, but who has been suffering from a shoulder injury and only made his comeback for Super 6 side, Watsonians recently.

The squad has quite a cosmopolitan feel to it, with players whose homes are in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa combining with those born and brought up in Scotland.

Some of these players have already represented their countries at Under-20 level before changing their allegiances to Scotland.

Others are project players who have qualified for Scotland through the residency rules.

Perhaps fewer eyebrows are raised at these players switching from one country to another nowadays. But it doesn’t seem right to me.

Townsend may be delighted with the strength-in-depth that he has in his squad for the autumn internationals, but if they come as ‘cast offs’ from the Springboks, All Blacks or Wallabies is that really the right thing for the game?

I am not pointing the finger of blame at the Scottish coach, because he is only trying to play on a level field.

World Rugby are the ones who need to take a good hard look at the qualification rules – for me, they should end at Under-20.

What the Tonga match does do is give some of these new, younger players the opportunity to stake their claims for a place in the team against the ‘big boys’ – Australia and South Africa.

I don’t expect many to break into the team for these latter matches. But nothing is set in stone at this stage of the season and there is all to play for.

‘ World Rugby need to take a good hard look at qualification rules