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Hogg, Russell and Price among six Scotland players disciplined - report

(Photo by Ross MacDonald/SNS Group via Getty Images)

The BBC are reporting that six Scotland played have been disciplined internally following a breach of team protocols last weekend following their Six Nations win in Rome.

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Upon return to Scotland, skipper Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell, Ali Price, Darcy Graham, Sam Johnson and Sione Tuipulotu were sanctioned after they apparently left the team hotel to visit a bar in Edinburgh.

According to the report the players were told to return to their team hotel by management when their trip became known to staff.

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      The SRU said in a statement: “The Scotland management team have this week dealt with a post-match matter involving six players following the game against Italy last weekend.

      “The players involved have been spoken to individually and those conversations and outcomes will remain private.

      “Preparations for the match against Ireland this week have been good and the whole squad is fully focused on achieving a positive result on Saturday.”

      Hogg, Price, Graham and Johnson all start against Ireland, while Russell is named on the bench.

      The incident of course evokes memories of ‘Finngate’ in 2020, when Russell left the Scotland camp after a situation involving his reluctance to leave a hotel bar.

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      When approached by team-mates and members of Townsend’s backroom staff during that episode, he ignored requests to stop drinking and later left the hotel to return to his parents’ home in Stirling.

      Russell was a no-show at training the next day and was then informed he would not be selected for duty against Ireland. Russell then opted to return to Paris and miss the remainder of that tournament.

      It was an episode the SRU would have liked to forget and it took months to mend the relationship between head coach Gregor Townsend and Russell.

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      In this year’s competition, Scotland have defeated England and Italy but were well beaten by Wales and France. Russell started all four matches without excelling and was sin-binned in the Wales game.

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      Scotland are now looking to end the tournament on a high with a rare win away to Ireland.

      “I think it’s been a mixed bag, with inconsistency,” said back row Hamish Watson, reflecting on his side’s performance in the tournament so far. “It started really well, on such a positive note (against England), but we didn’t manage to back it up against Wales and that hit our confidence.

      “We’ve worked hard this tournament but I don’t think we’ve played at our best so it’s about trying to put everything together and put in a performance against Ireland.

      “I think if we got a win away in Ireland, which is going to be a tough task, it would be a nice way to top off the tournament.”

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      Ireland have a chance of winning the Six Nations, if France slip-up against England, and have beaten Scotland in each of their last six meetings.

      “It’s a very tough place to go and play,” said Watson.

      “It’s quite a hostile environment but we believe in ourselves and the last time we went there (in the Six Nations), it was decided within a try so it should be a tight game.

      “Ireland are one of the in-form teams in world rugby so we’re excited to test ourselves against them.”

      Stuart Hogg Finn Russell
      Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

      Much of the pre-match chat has centred around Townsend’s decision to replace Russell with Blair Kinghorn at stand-off. The former is deemed one of the top number 10s in the world, while the latter is relatively untried in the position at the top level having only converted to stand-off this season.

      Watson is an Edinburgh team-mate of Kinghorn’s and has backed the 25-year-old to handle the responsibility of such a key role in the Aviva Stadium.

      “I’ve been playing with Blair since he joined Edinburgh when he was about 18 so I’m really happy for him,” said Watson.

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      “It’s exciting for him. He’s similar in a way to Finn because he’s a very chilled-out guy, very calm, and I think that will help him against Ireland.

      “I don’t think he’ll let the occasion get to him. He’s been great for Edinburgh this season, really exciting, so hopefully he can take that on to the international stage.”

      Scotland: Stuart Hogg (captain), Darcy Graham, Chris Harris, Sam Johnson, Kyle Steyn, Blair Kinghorn, Ali Price; Matt Fagerson, Hamish Watson, Rory Darge, Grant Gilchrist, Jonny Gray, Zander Fagerson, George Turner, Pierre Schoeman.

      Reserves: Fraser Brown, Allan Dell, WP Nel, Sam Skinner, Josh Bayliss, Ben White, Finn Russell, Mark Bennett.

      additional reporting PA

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      Comments

      1 Comment
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      Alastair 1229 days ago

      Sick of "it's only a beer" chat! These are professional sportsmen who have agreed, among themselves, a code of conduct. Follow it or feck off!

      Join free and tell us what you really think!

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      S
      SK 1 hour ago
      Lessons the Wallabies must heed to turn Lions heartbreak into future success

      Brett I love your fresh take on the picture that needed to be painted and ultimately wasnt. I agree there just wasnt enough in it for the ref to call it back and ultimately the ref was consistent the whole night at the breakdown. Australia are damned disheartened now but look how close it came to beating a team Campo said would thrash them by 30. This is the perfect prep for the Rugby Championship and the Boks and NZ. The Boks will be able to bring a scary pack to face the Aussies but it will be just as scary as facing these lads and so the Wallabies for me are making progress. They are not quite the finished article and the soft moments and tries and passive defence just proves it. Schmidt was brought in to make Australia better, he was brought in to make sure Australia improved in time for the Lions to avoid an embarrassment and look he has done that and taken them close so while the result is gutting its a job well done so far. lets see if they can take one step further and pilfer a test off these patchy Lions. Just a quick word on refs and the laws. Can we please tell World Rugby to simplify the game. At least 5 or 6 laws were examined in the wake of the last minute cleanout and several said Tizzano should have been pinged, others say Morgan should have been pinged. If former players and refs cant agree on what the right call was then it means the game is too complex. The refs have a clear mandate to let the game flow. I agree with that but the laws must support the refs. Right now they do not and leave too many holes for the refs to plug. The result is a furore after every major engagement between nations where the refs are abused.

      35 Go to comments
      I
      IkeaBoy 2 hours ago
      'The Wallabies only have themselves to blame': How the Lions sunk Australia in Melbourne

      I’m a proud Irishman with a weakness for the underdog. My only stake in the game was an Aussie win to take the series to a decider. Even overlooking the actual clear out - which was the only thing Piardi instructed the TMO to review - I think it’s very easy to be objective and say that Australia got done on the calls.


      It’s a phase of play that unfolds in less than 10 seconds but is fairly easy to breakdown.


      1 - Ryan (#19 Lions) is tackled legally, goes to ground in possession of the ball but makes no effort to release the ball. He has to immediately once he goes to ground. PENALTY.


      2 - Tizzano (#21 Australia) is first man to the ball (from either team) and forms the ruck with his own hindfoot. Side entry doesn’t apply to him as the ruck is not formed at this stage but rather it’s formed by him. NO PENALTY.


      3 - Even to completely ignore the actual clear out (penalty/no penalty), foul play can still have occurred without the need for a HIA. The fact that Tizzano is walking around and available for the next match doesn’t mean he didn’t get emptied. His mouthguard data does seem to have registered an almighty force though. 50/50.


      4 - Both Morgan (#20 Lions) and Genge (#17 Lions) go to clear out but both do so by driving through the ruck off their feet and falling over the ball. Sealing. PENALTY


      5 - I still don’t understand why none of the coverage picks up on this - Morgan holds Tizzano’s feet in a wrap on the pitch after the clear out. On the match clock it’s 79.03 to 79.07 before he releases. Playing the player off the ball. PENALTY


      Piardi controls the narrative when reviewing with the TMO and starts on the wrong foot. The discussion is all on the basis that both sets of players arrive at the same time (which changes mitigation around foul play) which they don’t. They clearly don’t as Tizzano is first to the ball.


      For 79 mins that match was brilliant. The crowd was brilliant. The atmosphere seemed brilliant. It’s a loss on the sport that a gang of mic’d up officials can not get it right.

      179 Go to comments
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