Rugby World Cup: Scotland's Hamish Watson urged to play his way into Ireland match after Romania nod
The openside flanker was a mainstay of the Scotland team for years but lost his starting place to Rory Darge this summer. Watson, 31, failed to make the match-day 23 for the first two games of the tournament, against South Africa and Tonga, but will start against the Pool B minnows at Stade Pierre-Mauroy.
Townsend has made 13 changes for the game on Saturday and has named Grant Gilchrist as captain for the match. He has taken the opportunity to rest established players Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe, Sione Tuipulotu, Jack Dempsey and Richie Gray with the showdown against Ireland in Paris on October 7 in mind. There are first appearances in this World Cup for Watson, stand-off Ben Healy, flanker Luke Crosbie and prop Javan Sebastian. Johnny Matthews, the hooker who flew in last weekend to replace the injured Stuart McInally, is on the bench and in line to make his Scotland debut.
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Hide AdFor Watson, it’s a chance to remind Townsend of his first-class pedigree which saw him voted Six Nations player of the tournament in 2021, win a call-up for the Lions’ tour of South Africa later that year and captain Scotland as recently as last summer.
“Hamish is one of our senior players, he’s been a terrific player for Scotland, he’s well loved by the group, coaches and players,” said Townsend. “Just over a year ago he was captain for us over in Argentina. To go from being a regular starter, a captain and then miss out on the 23 for the first two [World Cup] games was obviously tough and frustrating for him.
“We didn’t make that many changes for those first two games, so some players rightly feel they’ve not had an opportunity. It’s just been down to circumstances. This is an opportunity for him to play in the World Cup but also to put pressure on the players who have started the first two games, to be selected for the game against Ireland.”
A bonus-point win over Romania would see Scotland going into the Ireland decider needing to win but also deny their opponents a bonus point if they are to leapfrog Andy Farrell’s team for a place in the quarter-finals.
Townsend said his regular captain, Jamie Ritchie, was on course to be fit to face the Irish as he goes through the return-to-play protocols following the concussion injury he sustained against Tonga following a high tackle by Afusipa Taumoepeau. The Scotland coach was furious that the Tongan wing was shown only a yellow card for the challenge and said there had been dialogue this week with World Rugby, the game’s governing body.
“Obviously, I was very frustrated and disappointed with the actions at the time, and it wasn’t the only time I’ve experienced that in the World Cup, but you’ve got to move on from it,” said Townsend. “We’ve lost a player and hopefully that player is not going to miss any more games at the World Cup, but it was a tackle which should never have been allowed to occur in the game and it should have been a red card at the time, and certainly upgraded to a red card.
“It’s the sort of tackle we want out the game, and it was an opportunity to do that, and that was missed. But the feedback process went well, and we appreciated that.”
Townsend said that Ritchie had been showing no more symptoms. “He’s good. I believe he’s passed his last head injury assessment and I think he has a three-day wait after that. So he’s on schedule to come back and do bike on Saturday, run on Sunday, skills on Monday, train on Tuesday and then he’ll have to do the video call with the consultant and if everything goes smoothly he’ll be training next week and available for selection.”