Scotland Six Nations: New co-captain Rory Darge faces race against time to be fit for opening match

Flanker out of knee brace but may not make match against Wales

Rory Darge, Scotland’s new co-captain, has begun his rehab but faces a race against time to be fit for the opening weekend of this year’s Guinness Six Nations.

Darge and Finn Russell were named as joint skippers on Sunday, taking over from Jamie Ritchie who has held the captaincy since October 2022. Scotland face Wales in Cardiff on February 3 in their first match and it may come too soon for Darge who strained medial collateral ligaments in Glasgow Warriors’ loss to Edinburgh at Murrayfield last month. A more realistic target may be Scotland’s second Six Nations game, against France at home on February 10. Either way, Darge will travel to Spain next week with the rest of the national squad for a pre-tournament training camp.

“We’ll wait and see,” said Gregor Townsend, the Scotland coach, at the Six Nations media launch at the sponsors’ HQ. “He got good news on Friday. He’s out the knee brace and he’ll start his running rehab process this week. He did a session on Sunday, not much on Monday because he’s here in Dublin, and then we’ll see how he is at the end of the week. He’ll definitely be in the squad for Spain and, for the Wales game, we’ll need to make the call on Monday or Tuesday whether he’ll make it or not. But if he doesn’t we’re confident that it will be the following week.”

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend and co-captain Rory Darge with the Guinness Six Nations trophy at the launch of the 2024 championship at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. (Picture: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan)

Darge, 23, missed last season’s Six Nations after injuring his ankle while playing for Glasgow and will work closely with the Scotland medical team on his recovery. “I’m sort of aiming for one of the first two games,” he said. “We’re back in camp so I’ll get tested by the physios and see how my progress is then hopefully I’ll reintegrate back into running and team training. It’s very much seeing how the knee reacts to progressing my rehab and taking it from there.”

One player who will definitely miss the first two rounds of the Six Nations is Darcy Graham who picked up an injury to the thigh/groin area in Edinburgh’s Challenge Cup match with Gloucester. The winger suffered a similar injury during the summer ahead of the World Cup. “He’s obviously very disappointed,” said Townsend. “He played that game against Gloucester and he was tight around the quad area. We just thought, with Edinburgh, that it would be worth getting a scan, hoping it would be a week to two-week injury at most. That’s what had happened in the World Cup warm-up games. I think he missed the game over in Saint-Etienne because of the same problem but it was actually more significant. We’re aiming and hoping he’ll be available for round three but it’ll just depend how he reacts over the next couple of weeks when he starts rehab again.”

There is a fortnight’s break between the France match at Murrayfield and Scotland’s third game, at home to England on February 24. There is then another two-week gap before the Scots complete their fixtures with away games against Italy and Ireland, on March 9 and 16.

Townsend is also waiting to hear about the availability of Grant Gilchrist who was sent off in Edinburgh’s Challenge Cup tie with Scarlets at the weekend. The lock received two yellow cards, each for a dangerous tackle. The disciplinary case is to be heard by a single judicial officer, Gareth Graham of England, rather than a committee, and on a “papers only basis” which suggests it is not considered too serious and Gilchrist may avoid a suspension or receive a relatively light ban.