NO GEORGIA TRIP A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT FOR BLAIR

MIKE BLAIR last night spoke of his ‘massive disappointment’ after Scotland’s summer tour was abandoned following the cancellation of their Test against Georgia in Tbilisi. The Georgians reported six positive Covid cases in their camp while in South Africa this week, which led to their match against the Springboks being called off. The subsequent need for a 12-day period of isolation and further medical assessment saw an agreement reached to cancel the fixture with Scotland on

July 17. Scotland had already been forced to call off their match against Romania and an ‘A’ international against England due to positive tests being returned in the Scots’ camp. Interim head coach Blair, standing in for Gregor Townsend who is on British and Irish Lions duty, said: ‘As a playing group and management team, we’re obviously massively disappointed as the Georgia match was a challenge we were looking forward to, especially given that our last two fixtures have been called off. ‘However, like all decisions during this pandemic, player welfare must always come first, and our thoughts are certainly with those affected in the Georgian camp as we have been through a similar situation. ‘It’s clearly been a frustrating couple of weeks given the positive cases and subsequent cancellations. However, I can’t fault the hard work and effort put in by this group of players through what has been a tough period. ‘We’ll see plenty more from them in years to come if they continue with the same drive that we’ve seen in this short time together.’ Scotland’s squad had returned to graduated training at Edinburgh’s Oriam Performance Centre this week after a round of negative PCR tests allowed them to begin preparations ahead of departing for Georgia this weekend. But with their summer schedule now concluded, players will be released back to their clubs.