Rugby: Scots task gets bigger as Wales given get extra week of preparation

Published on Thursday 15 January 2009 21:11

SCOTLAND'S challenge of toppling the Grand Slam champions in their first match of the RBS Six Nations Championship has grown with an agreement struck to allow the Wales squad an extra week's preparation for the match.

The Welsh Rugby Union was involved in a bitter dispute with its regional clubs over player release ahead of last year's autumn Tests, the Wales coach Warren Gatland insisting that he should have his players for 13 days prior to their opening game with South Africa. The regions stuck to the line adopted by English clubs and refused to release players until after their matches five days before the Test.

The argument ended up in the High Court and the players were released eight days before the game. Though the new IRB regulation states only that players must be released the week before an international, the two parties have now reached agreement similar to English club's deal with the RFU – only without the multi-million payment – for a 13-day period of preparation for the Six Nations, which opens for Wales against Scotland at Murrayfield on Sunday, 8 February.

It is easier for the regions this time as they have no Magners League matches at the end of the month and the Scarlets coach Nigel Davies was expected to leave out his Wales players from their match against the Barbarians on 31 January.

Highlighting the difficult situation the Scotland coaches find themselves in, the Scarlets may play Scott MacLeod in that game and only release him to Scotland a week before they play Wales.

Gatland will also have first call on the players for the entire Six Nations Championship, even though there are two weekends of regional matches during the Six Nations' fallow weeks, but his Scottish counterpart Frank Hadden is unlikely to have his full squad together until 2 February, as those outside Scotland do not have to be released until then, and he must also allow them to return to their clubs to play during the two fallow weeks.

In Scotland's last major international, the 14-10 defeat to South Africa, Hadden selected just four players from outside Scotland in the starting XV and another three on the bench. Simon Taylor was out injured, but is firmly in the running for a Six Nations spot, and he, Nathan Hines at Perpignan, Northampton's Euan Murray, Sean Lamont and Scott Gray, Sale's Jason White and Gloucester trio Alasdair Strokosch, Rory Lawson and Alasdair Dickinson are all destined to be involved in crucial league games the weekend before the Wales' Test.

Scrum-half Chris Cusiter is also back from a hand injury that kept him from being considered for the autumn internationals, while Test veteran lock Scott Murray could come back into contention for a second-row place, and they, too, are likely to be involved in major league matches.