RUGBY/SIX NATIONS NEWS:AS WITH Declan Kidney the day before, Andy Robinson yesterday announced an unchanged side for Saturday's Six Nations finale at Croke Park. With Kelly Brown seemingly on the mend from "a head knock", the Scottish flanker is set to remain part of the same starting XV which drew with England in the Calcutta Cup match at Murrayfield last weekend.
“The treatment from the medical team right throughout the championship has been first class and they’ve been really tested,” said Robinson. “Kelly was brought off with a head knock. Because of the care he’s had, the treatment he’s been given and the protocols he has gone through he is fit to be involved.”
Robinson will be relieved, given Brown, the ball-carrying John Beattie and the authentic openside John Barclay have been the outstanding unit in the Scots’ relatively unlucky campaign this season.
Furthermore, what was once a fairly stuffed backrow cupboard is looking decidedly bare of late, given long-term injury victims Jason White, Ally Hogg and Alastair Strokosch are all ruled out.
Robinson said that had it been a six-day turnaround Brown wouldn’t have made it for Croke Park, à la scrumhalf Mike Blair and prop Alasdair Dickinson, who have now both recovered from the concussion they sustained against Italy six days before the England game. They are preferred on the bench to Rory Lawson and Geoff Cross, while Leinster’s Nathan Hines will be acutely disappointed to miss out with a knee injury and is replaced by Glasgow’s 20-year-old lock Richie Gray.
In something of a change from his predecessors, Robinson has spoken of Scotland’s need to put themselves in a position to win games and then learn how to win them. He’s succeeded in the first, if still falling tantalisingly short of the second, as the Scots might conceivably have been coming to Croke Park on the back of three successive wins instead of garnering just one point.
But for injuries to Thom Evans and Chris Paterson against Wales, coupled with two yellow cards, they’d surely have held on to win that freakish encounter in round two at the Millennium Stadium; they were over the line three times in losing 16-12 to Italy and had the better of last Saturday’s 15-15 draw with England.
“When you play against a side like Ireland, they’ve been involved in a lot of very close games but they know how to win games and that’s the step we’ve got to take. When it comes down to the crux what we’ve got to understand is how to nail and win games. Argentina, Wales, Italy and England are all testament that that’s an area we still need to nail. When we fully understand that this team can really move forward.”
The Scots have been very direct and have offloaded a little more, with Beattie and his backrowers along with the midfield pair of Graeme Morrison and Nick De Luca their main source of go-forward ball. Robinson was talking up the latter pair again yesterday.
“I was pleased with the way Graeme Morrison carried the ball and the way he ran strongly. I’ve made no secret that I’m a Graeme Morrison fan and I believe that having a centre of his quality in the midfield playing at inside centre with his pace and physicality is something that’s important to us if we want to win rugby matches.
“Nick De Luca came in (for his first start since autumn ‘08) and showed the maturity he’s developed in the last couple of years. I felt he was very controlled in his performance plus carried the ball well in attack,” said Robinson.
SCOTLAND (v Ireland, Saturday, Croke Park, 5.0): H Southwell (Stade Francais); S Lamont (Scarlets), N Di Luca (Edinburgh), G Morrison (Glasgow), M Evans (Glasgow); D Parks (Glasgow), C Cusiter (Glasgow, capt); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), E Murray (Northampton), J Hamilton (Edinburgh), A Kellock (Glasgow), K Brown (Glasgow), J Barclay (Glasgow), J Beattie (Glasgow). Replacements: S Lawson (Gloucester), A Dickinson (Gloucester), R Gray (Glasgow), A MacDonald (Edinburgh), M Blair (Edinburgh), P Godman (Edinburgh), S Danielli (Ulster).
