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Hastings hopes 'cheeky chappy' Price is right to soften Laidlaw blow
By Peter Thompson
Gavin Hastings said the loss of Greig Laidlaw is a "massive blow" for Scotland and has urged "cheeky little chappy" Ali Price to grasp his opportunity if he gets a first start against Wales in the Six Nations.
Scotland captain Laidlaw has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament after suffering an ankle injury in the 22-16 defeat against France in Paris last weekend.
Former Scotland skipper Hastings rued the absence of Gloucester's Clermont Auvergne-bound pivot, who was outstanding in the defeat of Ireland at Murrayfield on the opening day of the Six Nations.
Speaking on behalf of Land Rover, Hastings told Omnisport: "It's a massive blow to Scotland. He's been such an inspiration for the Scotland team, I think he's really come of age over the last 18 months or so.
"He exudes so much confidence and the way he conducts himself and his goal-kicking is just awesome, so he will be a big loss to Scotland but that's the nature of the beast.
"We are not the only team to suffer injuries so we're just going to have to get on with it."
Price did not make the immediate impact Vern Cotter would have been looking for when he shoved Camille Lopez to the ground in an attempt to take a quick penalty, resulting in referee Jaco Peyper reversing his decision.
But Hastings thinks the Glasgow Warriors playmaker could offer Scotland, who have also lost Josh Strauss for the rest of the tournament, something different if he gets the nod to take on Wales a week on Saturday.
The ex-British and Irish Lions captain added: "He's obviously done very well at Glasgow. He seems to be a different sort of character to Greig, a bit more in the mould of a cheeky little chappy at scrum-half.
"Through a bit of over-keenness he gave away a penalty that was not helpful to Scotland against France, but he'll learn from that.
"It's just over-enthusiasm in many respects, whether it's him that starts or anyone else coming in, rugby is all about taking your chances. I thought he played pretty well against France and it's another step forward if he's going to get selected for the Wales match."
- Land Rover is on the hunt for grassroots Lions to join them on the British & Irish Lions Tour to New Zealand 2017. For your chance to win a place on tour, go to @LandRoverRugby #WeDealInReal
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Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
Go to commentsYou always get idiots who go overboard. What else is new? I ignore them. Why bother?
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