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Five Scotland players flown home from Americas tour
By Josh Raisey
Scotland have announced that five players have returned home from their tour of the Americas with two matches remaining.
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Northampton Saints duo Robbie Smith and prop Elliot Millar-Mills, Glasgow Warriors fly-half Ross Thompson, Edinburgh lock Glen Young and his teammate Ross McCann are the five players.
All five featured in their 73-12 win over Canada in the first match of the tour, with both Smith and McCann making their debuts for their country. Smith, Millar-Mills and Thompson were retained in Gregor Townsend’s matchday squad for the 42-7 win over the United States in Washington, with the trio featuring from the bench.
While Scotland have revealed in a statement that lock Glen Young has suffered a pectoral injury, there is no clarification as to why the quartet have returned home.
Three uncapped players have been flown in as replacements. Glasgow’s new signing from Exeter Chiefs, tighthead Fin Richardson, is joined by his soon-to-be club teammate scrumhalf Ben Afshar, as well as Edinburgh lock Rob Carmichael as ‘development players’ in the squad.
Following the wins over Canada and the USA, Scotland face Chile and Uruguay over the next two weeks.
Townsend selected an inexperienced squad for this tour, with ten players making their debuts against Canada. Speaking ahead of the tour, he said this was an opportunity for players to put their hands up for selection later this year, where they host Fiji, South Africa, Portugal and Australia.
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“When we selected the squad, one of the principles we had was, do we believe these players can play for us not just now, they get an opportunity now, but November (Autumn Tests) and in the Six Nations? That’s the goal,” he said, as reported by the PA.
“Players that we think can make a difference for us as we go into next season.
“Maybe I can give an example of Elliot Millar-Mills.
“Elliott was called up on the Sunday night, after Will Hurd got injured on the Saturday playing for Leicester the week before we came into our Six Nations camp.
“He grabbed his opportunity coming off the bench against Wales and in other games and has taken his game to another level since the Six Nations.
“Now we have a view of him being someone who’s competing really hard with Zander (Fagerson), that can not only add depth to us at tighthead but can make a difference when he plays.”
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