Scotland squad: 5 takeaways as Townsend faces prop dilemma

Having announced a 45-man squad for the forthcoming Quilter Nations Series, Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend spoke to the wider media for the first time on Tuesday since news of his consultancy role with Red Bull emerged earlier this month.

As well as addressing the potential for conflicts of interest and extra demands on his time in his part-time gig with the energy drinks giant, Townsend also explained in more depth some of the reasoning behind his selections for the Tests against USA, New Zealand, Argentina and Tonga in November.

Here are five takeaways.

Who might face New Zealand if ‘one of world’s best tightheads doesn’t make it?

The state of Zander Fagerson’s fitness has been a major point of discussion in recent weeks, as it always is when the country’s premier tighthead is not in peak health.

The 29-year-old, Scotland’s most capped prop with 75, has not played since April and missed out on a second British and Irish Lions tour this summer with a calf injury, while a knee issue picked up during his rehab means he will not be donning a Glasgow jersey before the international season begins.

Fagerson is back in training with Warriors, but unlikely to be ready for the Test against USA on 1 November, leaving Townsend with a quandary over whether to throw one of his prized assets straight back into Test rugby for the biggest game of the autumn against the All Blacks.

“That’ll be the question I’ll have to answer in about a week’s time,” he acknowledged. “We know how Zander’s progressing. He’s started some scrummaging, he’s running. We will want to see him train next week in full scrums. We believe he’ll be back to full training and available for that New Zealand game. Right now, I can’t honestly make a call. We know him as a player and how he’s responded after injuries, what his value is to the team. But we need to see him at training and get a feel for where he is at.”

Townsend admitted it may not be until the following week against Argentina, or even the final game against Tonga [on 23 November] before Fagerson can return, but the aim is for him and recuperating flanker Rory Darge to be in the selection mix for New Zealand.”

The other options in the squad are Northampton’s Elliot Millar Mills (nine caps, three starts), Edinburgh’s Darcy Rae (two caps off the bench, five years apart) and Glasgow’s Murphy Walker (five caps, two starts), the latter just two games into his latest comeback from a sequence of serious injuries over the past three years.

Townsend acknowledged the lack of experienced alternatives but said that was partly down to the excellence and durability of Fagerson, who regularly plays 65-70 minutes in games and sometimes the full 80, as he did against France in this year’s Six Nations.

“We have one of the best tightheads in the world, and we have had for a number of years. That is a brilliant position to be in. I’d prefer to be in this situation than with more depth and not the same quality,” added Townsend, who highlighted Millar Mills’ display against Leinster in last season Champions Cup semi-final and Fin Richardson’s Test debut this summer – though he has not made the latest squad – as cause for optimism.

Liam McConnell ‘has a big future ahead of him’

Edinburgh flanker Liam McConnell has only started four senior games among eight outings for the club overall, but the 21-year-old is already attracting coveted glances from Gallagher Prem clubs.

In confirming Edinburgh have opened contract talks with the burgeoning blindside to try to ward off that interest, head coach Sean Everitt said on Friday he thought McConnell will be “very important for Scotland going forward, and perhaps a skipper one day”.

Unsurprisingly, Townsend said it was “early days” to be talking in such terms, but he has clearly seen and heard enough about the youngster to reward his strong early-season form with a first senior call-up.

“He was a great captain for the Under-20s and when we trained with them, he’d often get into fights with Pierre Schoeman and others, so he brought an edge. You see that in players that end up playing at the highest level – they want it straightaway, they’re prepared to put their bodies on the line.

“They’re not waiting for someone to be injured to get an opportunity. They’re going to force their hand. It’s not just the edge he brings in training but also the work he’s done on his skills and physically.

“We got a lot of good feedback from how he trained in Edinburgh pre-season – what he’s doing fitness-wise, what he’s doing in the games. He’s shown that and earned that opportunity. We know there’s more to come.”

That potential may yield a debut against USA before the squad is reduced in size for the remaining three Tests.

“He’s got ability to play across the back row,” Townsend added. “Blindside, you’d think, is that natural position for him with the line-out ability and the toughness he brings. But he’s got the speed to play No.8 and he’s shown on the defensive side, post-tackle, he could play seven. So, that’s someone who definitely has a big future ahead of him.”

Sione Tuipulotu was always going to reclaim captaincy

Since Jamie Ritchie was relieved of the captaincy after the 2023 World Cup, Scotland’s on-field leadership has largely been a shared arrangement, with Finn Russell and Rory Darge made co-captains for the 2024 Six Nations before Sione Tuipulotu, Stafford McDowall, Luke Crosbie, Darge – and Ritchie again – split the gig on that summer’s tour.

It might have been different this year had Glasgow centre Tuipulotu, who made a strong fist of the sole captaincy last autumn, not picked up an untimely pec injury which ruled him out of the entire Six Nations, with the duties reverting jointly to Russell and Darge, before the latter led this summer’s tour, with Tuipulotu and Russell away with the Lions.

But with Tuipulotu now a Test Lion and fit and firing again for Glasgow in recent weeks, Townsend had no hesitation in reverting to his talismanic centre for this series.

“I think he did such a good job,” he said. “His last game was against Australia, which was a great individual performance, but the way he led the team was fantastic. He was due to captain in the Six Nations and got injured the week before it.

“Since then he’s had that comeback, he’s had a Lions experience and showed exactly who he is since that injury. Having spoken to him, I know it’s a huge motivator for him to lead the country. I just hope he gets more opportunities to do it this year.”

‘The ingredients are there’ for Scotland to achieve potential

Scotland had eight Lions chosen in the original squad before Fagerson’s withdrawal, with five more – Ben White, Darcy Graham, Ewan Ashman, Rory Sutherland and Gregor Brown – also called up and pulling on the famous red shirt before the end of the tour.

While the nine players based in England and four in France are off limits for the USA game, most of the squad will meet up on Sunday – apart from Toulouse full-back Blair Kinghorn and Toulon scrum-half Ben White, who face each other in the Top 14 that day – for a training camp early next week before the exiles return to their clubs and a Glasgow-Edinburgh combination are left to tackle the Americans first up.

While one of their Test Lions, centre Huw Jones, will miss the autumn series, there are still 16 players with more than 30 caps, six of whom are well past the 50 mark, while another six could hit it by the end of this season. That age and experience profile was one of the reasons why Townsend was keen to extend his tenure into a ninth and 10th year until the 2027 World Cup.

“Look, we’ve got a great group of players. You can evidence that by watching them play weekly, or by more players on the Lions tour. But I think it’s more than that. It’s the collective experiences that they’ve had together.

“A lot of our players are over 50 caps. Those are traits that come out of teams that have success. It’s rare to have success when you’re collectively under 500 caps. Our guys are getting closer to 600-700 caps and beyond as a group.

“With the stages of certain players and their careers, they’re getting to that sweet spot with the experience, knowing what it takes to win, knowing the game physically and skill-wise, being in their prime. Of course, we need a bit of luck with injuries, we understand that. If we can have as many of our squad and our leading players available, it’s going to give us more chance to win.”

Townsend also believes a swelling leadership group, with the likes of Grant Gilchrist, Scott Cummings, Jamie Ritchie and Kyle Steyn supporting Tuipulotu, Russell and Darge, bodes well as they target victory – including a first ever against New Zealand – over all four opponents in the coming weeks.

“The ingredients are there,” he said. “The opportunity is there. It’s now up to us to make sure we make the most of it.”

And Red Bull? Townsend feels ‘energised’ by second job

Townsend was adamant there is no danger of his Scotland role being compromised by his 30-days-a-year advisory role with Red Bull, insisting he will “give everything” to the day job for what is likely to be his final two years in charge of the national team.

“It is too much in terms of time, then I can control that. They’re aware of that too. If it means I have to step back, then I step back. It’s my time when it’s holidays, weekends, or time that I’m not in camp.

“In terms of the time commitment, so far it’s been busy as we’re planning this period, which is always busy, but it’s been energising. But I know that I’ll need some time off as well, so I’ve just got to make sure I balance that over the next year or two.”
Beyond that, the 52-year-old was circumspect about the possibility of moving into a full-time position with Red Bull, possibly at Newcastle, once he is done with Scotland.“I can’t predict the future,” he said. “When they spoke to me about an advisor role,

they described it a little bit, what Jürgen Klopp works with in football. So, who knows what will happen after the World Cup. But the goal now is to give everything in the next two years. I don’t know what’s going to happen after that.”

Might Klopp make an appearance at Murrayfield over the next month perhaps? “Well, that’d be good, yeah,” Townsend grinned. “I do hope to catch up with him as a role model and someone to learn from in sport. I’m a Liverpool fan, but I’m a big fan of what he’s done in terms of setting the environment. I’ll be looking forward to that sit-down with him.”