Scotland add four players to squad as three drop out
Scotland have called up four players to their squad this week as they prepare to take on Italy in Rome on Saturday in round four of the Guinness Six Nations.
Tighthead prop Javan Sebastian, loosehead Rory Sutherland, lock Marshall Sykes and scrum-half Jamie Dobie have all been drafted into Gregor Townsend's squad, while the injured Sione Tuipulotu, prop WP Nel and lock Alex Craig have all dropped out.
The four new additions all played over the weekend, with Sebastian replacing Nel for Edinburgh in the second half of their United Rugby Championship win over the Ospreys. Sykes also came on from the bench in that match.
Dobie started in Glasgow Warriors' win over Benetton, while Sutherland featured from the bench in Oyonnax's loss to Montpellier in the Top 14.
Tuipulotu leaves a huge hole in Scotland's midfield for the remaining two rounds of the Six Nations after sustaining a knee injury in the Calcutta Cup win over England. His Glasgow head coach Franco Smith recently revealed that the centre is set to be sidelined for over two months.
"He's going to be out 10-12 weeks, maybe even quicker, but we are conservative with it," Smith said. "No operation is needed, which is important."
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Some interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
Go to commentsIt’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
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