Rugby: Murray and Hines in fight to be fit for opening encounter

Published on Monday 2 February 2009 23:08

EUAN Murray and Nathan Hines are both injury doubts for Scotland's opening RBS Six Nations Championship match with Wales after sitting out training yesterday.

The Scotsman revealed on Saturday that Murray is unlikely to be fit to play next Sunday and the tighthead prop also faces a race to make the second match, away to France on 14 February, after popping a rib in Northampton's last European Challenge Cup pool match with Toulon.

Hines had hoped that his concerns over missing Six nations matches had cleared last Tuesday with the birth of his son Joshua in Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary Hospital.

His wife Leann was not due to give birth until next week, which had left open the possibility that Hines could miss the French game.

However, the big second row has been nursing a knee injury for the past few weeks and with that failing to clear up before now he could miss the weekend's first game.

The SRU confirmed yesterday: "Euan Murray and Nathan Hines continued their rehabilitation and did not train with the Scotland squad at Murrayfield this afternoon, when all other players completed the session."

James Robson, the Scotland team doctor, added: "We will monitor the progress of Euan and Nathan on a daily basis."

Geoff Cross, Edinburgh's uncapped prop, is now in line for a step-up while Moray Low, the uncapped Glasgow prop, has remained with the Scotland squad after being called up last week. Two backs from the original 33-man squad, Rory Lawson and Ruaridh Jackson, have been released back to Gloucester and Glasgow respectively, which points firmly at Glasgow-bound Chris Cusiter returning to the matchday 22, to be named tomorrow, in Lawson's place.

On the subject of players returning, Scotland centre Rob Dewey has sealed a return to Scottish rugby from Ulster with agreement reached and final details being tied up on a move to Glasgow. The Scotsman understands, however, that Sean Lineen, the Glasgow coach, has failed in a bid to re-sign Rory Lamont from Sale.

In the Wales camp, coach Warren Gatland has stated that back row Jonathan Thomas, the Ospreys flanker who has not played for three weeks due to neck, shoulder and groin problems, is "very unlikely to play", while wing Mark Jones and Lee Byrne, the full-back, are back in the running for places as their recoveries from operations speed up. Wales also name their team to face Scotland tomorrow afternoon.

The SRU also stated that just 3,000 tickets (all in the 45 and 60 categories for adults and 22.50 and 30 for Under-18s) remain available for Sunday's kick-off, at what is now a 67,130 capacity Murrayfield.