Fraser Brown: Scotland Six Nations squad throws up surprises - but switching allegience should not be allowed

Glasgow Warriors and Scotland hooker writes exclusively for The Scotsman

Johnny Matthews enjoyed a try-scoring debut for Scotland during the Rugby World Cup match against Romania at Stade Pierre Mauroy in Lille on September 30, 2023. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

Gregor Townsend likes to spring a surprise with his squad selections and he didn’t let us down on Tuesday.

I don’t think anybody predicted Alec Hepburn or Will Hurd would feature in his 39-man group for this year’s Six Nations. It was natural that they captured the headlines along with the inclusion of two other uncapped players, Arron Reed and Harry Paterson.

For me, one of the other big stories coming out of the squad announcement was the inclusion of two of my Glasgow Warriors team-mates, Johnny Matthews and Stafford McDowall. Both have been playing exceptionally well all season and are in the squad based on form and merit. Each has just one cap to date and it will be fascinating to see if they are able to force their way into Gregor’s match-day 23. It will be tough, the Six Nations is a brutal competition; attritional, unforgiving and relentless even for seasoned internationalists and with an away day in Cardiff first up, there are few tougher tests.

Stafford McDowall in action during his Scotland debut in the summer international against Italy at Murrayfield Stadium on July 29, 2023. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

George Turner, for me, is still the best hooker in the country, particularly at Test level so I think the real battle is between Johnny and Ewan Ashman for the 16 jersey. Johnny is playing at a higher level than Ewan at the moment. Ashy was earmarked from an early age as a future Scotland star but he faces a battle to get into the match-day squad and at this moment, I think the nuts and bolts to Johnny’s game are stronger.

The same applies to Stafford. Can he force his way into a starting berth in one of the most hotly contested positions in the team? As things stand, I think Sione Tuipulotu will be at 13 and I’d say Cam Redpath is out in front as favourite to start at 12, outside Finn Russell.

Scotland have really good depth in the midfield and the absence of Chris Harris perhaps suggests a move by Gregor towards a more attacking game-plan. All the centres selected are good defenders and while Chris has been a mainstay of the Scotland defensive system under Steve Tandy for the last four years, the one criticism that came his way was that he didn’t offer enough in attack.

Stafford has been in excellent form since Franco Smith took over at Glasgow after almost seeing his career extinguished under the previous regime and could probably lay claim to being the most consistent Scottish centre over the last year or so. Sione has shown himself to be one of the best centres in the world over the same time period; Cam has been brilliant down at Bath alongside Finn; Rory Hutchinson has impressed for Northampton and then there’s Huw Jones who is made for Test rugby. How do you leave any of them out of the squad?

Hutch probably didn’t play as much rugby as he would have liked at the start of the season but in the last month or so he’s been excellent. It’s no coincidence that Saints are playing so well with that midfield axis of Fin Smith, Hutch, and Fraser Dingwall (the other two have been included in England’s Six Nations squad). Hutch has been used a lot as a second playmaker, as has Cam Redpath at Bath. Sione has done this role really well for Scotland and for Glasgow over the last year and it is now a real strength of the Scottish game, having an extra ball player in midfield. Of course, for a number of years this was the role filled by current Scotland coach Pete Horne, but it has been a rarity in the last 20 years for Scotland to have such ability and depth in this position.

I’m also really pleased to see Adam Hastings back in the squad. Adam’s had a horrible time with injury this year. He damaged his ankle in the World XV-Barbarians match and that probably cost him his chance to go to the World Cup. He played the first couple of games of the season for Gloucester then got injured again but he’s back now and has played in their last four games.

Gloucester have had a torrid time in the Premiership but Adam is a top quality player. In 2020, when he was thrust into the Scotland team for the Six Nations, he was excellent. In the space of 24 hours he had to adapt from being Finn’s understudy to running the entire squad and he coped brilliantly. Without being an obvious superstar, he was exceptional for the whole campaign.

He was nice and tidy and controlled the game well, he was always dangerous with ball in hand and threw himself around in defence. While he’s been injured down at Gloucester it’s been a case of out of sight, out of mind but he’s a quality 10 and it’s good to see him back.

Kyle Rowe has earned his recall, too. It took him a couple of weeks to find his feet at Glasgow but he has shown recently that he’s comfortable when he gets ball in hand and he did well at the weekend against Exeter.

He was going so well when he got selected to tour Argentina with Scotland in 2022 and was really unfortunate when he did his ACL on his debut over there. It’s not been easy for Kyle. He had the serious knee injury then London Irish went bust. He managed to get the move to Glasgow at the end of last season and he’s been building week on week and it’s great to see him back. He’s powerful and I think he offers a different dynamic to the other wingers in the squad.

Scotland are short in the back three, with Hoggy’s retirement in the summer, Ollie Smith doing his ACL, and Kyle Steyn having not played for two or three months.

Blair Kinghorn, Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe have been playing every week for their clubs but we’re just one injury away from having a makeshift back three and perhaps having to push someone like Huw Jones on to the wing. He’s more than comfortable playing there for Glasgow but Test rugby is a different beast.

So Scotland have been searching for other back three options and as well as Sale’s Reed they’ve selected Paterson who has been playing well at 15 for Edinburgh while Emiliano Boffelli has been injured.

I don’t think anyone was expecting Paterson to be in the Scotland squad quite yet but it’s probably a case of needs must. At the very least, it’s going to be really good exposure for him to be in and around the camp. Even on a practical level for training, if Blair’s running at 15 for the match-day 23 Harry can fill the role for the non-match 23.

The inclusion of Exeter Chiefs and former England loosehead Hepburn was a real curveball, although I do remember talk about him in 2018. Glasgow played Exeter in the Champions Cup that year and he’d been playing well and there was chat of him being Scottish-qualified. As it turned out, he was picked by England and played in the 2018 Six Nations.

He’s playing week in, week out in an Exeter side who are one of the best teams in the Premiership at the minute. He probably isn’t the strongest scrummager around but is more than capable and he scrummed well at the weekend against his soon to be Scotland colleague.

It feels odd that we’re picking someone who has played six times for England but we were in this same position last year when Ruaridh McConnochie was named in the squad. That’s where we are with international rugby at the minute. It’s not how the change to the eligibility law was designed to work and I still don’t think you should be allowed to play Test rugby for one team then switch to another.

I know the argument is that the Pacific Island nations get raided by the big nations and their young players go over there on school scholarships and are lost to their homeland but I just don’t think as a player you should get two bites at the cherry at international level. It’s Test rugby, not club rugby, and you pick the nation you want to represent. You don’t then change your mind seven, eight years down the road because you’re not getting picked or there’s an opportunity to go and play for your home nation.

But, in saying that, if this is the way the law is then I don’t think you can criticise any country for taking advantage. It might not sit comfortably but you can’t have a go at Scotland, Wales, France etc for following the laws. It would be hard to imagine it happening the other way around, with a Scotland international switching to England.

There has been a lot of debate about the lure of England in recent weeks with Immanuel Feyi-Waboso opting for England over Wales, Henry Arundel turning down the England opportunity by moving to a French club, and Will Carling speaking out about Owen Farrell’s situation and making the bizarre claim that the England jersey doesn’t have the allure it used to. Well, Owen Farrell has won over 100 caps for England so it obviously had a pretty big lure for him!

For England you mustn’t underestimate the financial factor. It’s around £25,000 per match to play for England, even if you’re on the bench. An eye watering amount that no other nation can get close to matching. It’s a pretty decent lure! Obviously there’s the honour of playing for England if you’re English but on top of that if you play five games you’re taking home £125,000. You play five games for Scotland and you’re taking home nowhere near that amount. For a young man, the opportunity to win seven, eight, nine caps for England also gives you the opportunity to earn a potentially life changing amount of money. In an extremely attritional and potentially short career, yeah, I can see the attraction.