SIMON Taylor lined up in an unfamiliar role against a familiar face when he and his Stade Francais colleagues travelled to meet Perpignan in yesterday's third round of French Championship fixtures.
Taylor, who has won all his 60 Scotland caps in the back row, was selected at lock for the second successive week as the league leaders took on the third-placed Catalan outfit.
That pitted Taylor against international colleague and former Edinburg
h team-mate Nathan Hines, who had shrugged off a bout of sickness in midweek to start for a Perpignan side that also featured in-form Chris Cusiter at scrum half.
Taylor also wore No.4 during the Parisian side's laboured 27-22 win over Mont de Marsan the previous week.
Now operating under a regime headed by the Australian coach Ewen McKenzie, Taylor appears to have slipped down the pecking order, particularly as his back row colleagues Sergio Parisse and Pierre Rabadan have been named as joint captains.
However, McKenzie insisted that the decision to play the Scot in the second row is likely to be a temporary measure.
He said, "We have hardly any choice in the second row since we are missing Auradou, Drozdz Pape and Marchois. That's forcing us to select a certain team rather than any choice on our part."
Meanwhile, the outlook looks promising for Cusiter, who shared the No.9 jersey with Nico Durand last season. He has worked assiduously over the summer on his fitness and his French and that commitment appears to have paid off.
Perpignan coach Jacques Brunel clearly sees the 26-year-old Scot as his first-choice scrum half, and Cusiter has mastered the language to an extent he now converses comfortably and has picked up a local accent.
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