Blair backs a trio of scrum-halves
Assistant head coach Mike Blair has revealed scotland will be taking three scrum-halves to the World Cup after describing England’s decision to opt for just two as ‘a risk’.
On Monday, Eddie Jones named two no 9s, the experienced Ben Youngs of Leicester tigers, who has 86 caps, and Willi Heinz, who has just one, in his squad for Japan. if either goes down injured then fly-half George Ford will be asked to fill in.
and Blair, the former scotland captain and scrum-half, believes it could be an unnecessary gamble, saying: ‘i think it’s a risk. i don’t know how quickly they can fly someone out if anyone gets sick overnight.
‘i’m not too sure what the back-up plan would be but it’s a way of getting an extra back-row player or an extra centre.’
scotland released Henry Pyrgos, the fourth scrum-half in their World Cup training squad, back to Edinburgh last week which left them with the three that will travel to Japan.
Blair made clear it has yet to be decided which of that trio — Greig Laidlaw, ali Price and George Horne — would go into the competition as first-choice nine.
in what will be a glorified shoot-out to secure the starting jersey for the opening Pool a match against ireland in Yokohama, all three will be given a chance to stake their claim in the four World Cup warm-up matches before the squad is finalised.
‘they’ve got a good dynamic, the three guys left behind,’ said Blair. ‘Henry did well while he was in camp but it’s a really competitive position, so someone was always going to drop out. Part of the reason to allow Henry to leave is that when you have four scrum-halves in 15-on-15 training, they don’t rotate a lot so they don’t get the time on the park they’d normally get.
‘When you are down to three, they rotate pretty well and still get rhythm and fitness. We’re really confident in the guys we’ve got left, that they’re capable of doing a job and are putting their hand up to be first choice no 9.
‘Overall, the squad isn’t 100-per-cent nailed down for that final 31 that will go to Japan. some guys will have an opportunity to put their hands up for that in our warm-up matches. at the same time, we need to get some cohesion in particular positions and units and use these games to check that they are working out well.’
Blair can detect a burning desire from everybody in the squad to be involved in the first warm-up game against France in nice on saturday after two months of solid training.
‘it has been a long time coming,’ he said. ‘the guys have been putting in a lot of work, conditioning-wise, rugby-wise. the contact side has been coming on a little bit more in the last ten days or so.
‘We are comfortable where we are at the moment.
‘the guys have been really looking forward to the games since the training week in Portugal, which was a few weeks ago now. training has been getting a little bit more physical and it looked like guys were putting their shoulders in a little bit more. they will be looking forward to getting that out of the system in the coming games.
‘the vast majority of the guys play rugby because they love playing rugby. What these guys love is the competitive environment, when they are playing the games.’