A NARROW defeat, a narrow win, a big win. The upwards trajectory of Scotland’s World Cup warm-up matches thus far is clear to see. Tonight at the Stade de France, in the last game before the tournament itself, that progress needs to continue.
Needless to say, another victory would be nice, but a realistic assessment suggests that Vern Cotter’s team could lose against the French and yet emerge from the match with enhanced optimism. Scotland’s coach believes that France are capable of lifting the Webb Ellis Cup, and his counterpart, Philippe Saint-Andre, is increasingly confident after his team’s 25-20 home win over England a fortnight ago. It will therefore not be the end of the world should the Scots lose to such strong opponents, provided in doing so they continue the improvement of the past three weeks.
In a sense, of course, no matter who Scotland are playing against this evening, the real concern for Cotter is how his side are shaping up for the next match, against Japan in Gloucester on Wednesday 23rd. “It’s our last 80 minutes to prepare for Japan, which is just a couple of weeks away, so it’s our last opportunity to prepare for things that didn’t go well against Italy and Ireland, and also some things that did - try and confirm those,” the coach said. “So it’s a very strong focus on what we can achieve.
“We’re using it as a measuring stick, if you like. We’re playing away from home against a team who’ve announced they’d like to score a lot of points against us. Defensively we’ll get tested, we’ll have to react quickly, play against big powerful athletes. It’s a game we’re looking forward to playing.”
Cotter has selected something very close to his first-choice team, the one definite exception being the injured Stuart Hogg and the other possible one being the as-yet-ineligible Josh Strauss. When Hogg returns at full-back, Sean Maitland will move to the wing, probably in place of Tim Visser. Given he has yet to play a Test match, Strauss cannot be termed an automatic first pick, although as things stand he will at least be a strong contender for either the No 6 or the No 8 shirt.
Still, while the coach has understandably chosen his strongest possible line-up against the strongest opponents from the four warm-up games, it is far from certain that he will want to do the same thing against Japan, given the next game against the United States is just four days later. The US will be a bigger physical challenge, but Cotter expects the Japanese to throw everything they can into the Scotland match - and, as he suggested a couple of months ago, to throw away their first game, against the Springboks four days beforehand.
So finding out how his best team measures up against France will be less important for Cotter than working out how certain combinations fare - and that means not only how parts of the starting line-up such as the back row function together, but also how two men in the same position make an impact over the 80 minutes.
At openside, for example, is it best to start John Hardie against both Japan and the USA, take him off after an hour and move Ryan Wilson over from blindside? Or might Fraser Brown, who like the other two hookers in the squad began rugby life in the back row, be a better bet as a replacement?
A squad of 31 for the tournament is very tight. It means, in effect, that you get an extra replacements’ bench, no more. And that 15 of that 31 will have to be involved, in some fashion, in both of those first two games.
Use of the replacements will therefore be a very important element of the match this evening. Tim Swinson, having returned from an injury that ruled him out of the squad for two months, will need match time in the second row. Brown may have to stick to being a replacement hooker tonight, if only to give him game time with substitute props Gordon Reid and Jon Welsh. And Alasdair Strokosch could come on at No 6 to allow Wilson to switch to 7.
France will be just as eager for a morale-boosting performance in their last outing before their World Cup opener against Italy, and a strong showing by them could limit Cotter’s room for experimentation and persuade him to go into damage-limitation mode. Still, when announcing his team on Thursday he insisted he was unconcerned by French hopes of a big win, and focused solely on a positive outlook for Scotland.
“Their thoughts and their attitude doesn’t change our approach to the game. We really want to get something from it, whether it’s confirming things about our first phase . . . . They have a very strong scrum, a powerful lineout, there’s [Wesley] Fofana and [Mathieu] Bastareaud in the centre. The frame and state of mind of how we go there is that we get something from it.”
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