RUGBY-SCOTLAND EXCITED BY PROSPECT OF NEW-LOOK TOURING SQUAD

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Scotland coach Gregor Townsend said he was excited by the prospects of his new-look squad who start a month-long tour of the Americas with a test against Canada in Ottawa on Saturday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Townsend named five uncapped players in the starting line-up to take on Canada and a further five among the replacements.

“It's rare, I suppose, in our international environment to have so many players new to our squad, so it's exciting and refreshing, and it challenges the experienced players to step up to show their standards of training and what we're expecting around here,” Townsend told a virtual press conference.

“We know it's going to be a great occasion for a number of players this weekend, winning their first caps, and we’re really excited to see them play. They've trained really well. Today's session was excellent in terms of the level of physicality and understanding in such a short time of what we want to do at the weekend.”

Scotland will also take on the U.S, Chile and Uruguay on the tour, having left out the bulk of their regulars as they look to use the tests to expand the pool of players they can pick from in the future.

“They understand the expectations we have of them and the belief we have in them. Time to adapt is not really something you have much of at test level,” the coach added.

Scotland trained last week before embarking on the tour and have had several more sessions since arriving in Canada.

“What we've seen so far is the players have adapted really well and they're putting their best foot forward. And with any player that's winning a first cap, we want to see in their performance what got them selected in the first place.”

Townsend said Scotland were confident all the newcomers could go on and become regulars.

“When we selected this squad, one of the principles we had was, do we believe these players can play for us, not just now, but in November and next year in the Six Nations? That's the goal,” he added.

(Reporting by Mark Gleeson in Hamburg; Editing by Clare Fallon)

2024-07-03T19:29:49Z dg43tfdfdgfd