Scotland player misses training for personal reasons ahead of Fiji match

Zander Fagerson did not train with Scotland on Friday for personal reasons but the coaching staff are hopeful he will be able to play against Fiji on Saturday.

Gregor Townsend’s side are taking on the Fijians in their opening match of the Autumn Nations Series at Murrayfield. If Fagerson is unable to play, D’Arcy Rae will step up from the replacements and start at tighthead prop. The Edinburgh front-rower won a recall to the squad and is in line to win his first cap since he made his international debut against Ireland in 2019.

Rae’s place on the bench would be taken by Fin Richardson who was not part of Townsend’s original 45-man autumn squad and has yet to play a senior competitive match for Glasgow Warriors.

The situation highlights Scotland’s lack of options at tighthead, a specialised position in which Fagerson is a world-class operator. WP Nel had long been Scotland’s other senior tighthead but he retired at the end of last season.

Scotland's Zander Fagerson missed training. | SNS Group / SRU

The match against Fiji is taking place before the recognised Test window opens so Townsend is unable to select players who are based in England or France, ruling out Elliot Millar Mills of Northampton and Leicester’s Will Hurd. Javan Sebastian of Edinburgh, another option at tighthead, is currently injured.

Richardson, 25, played for Glasgow’s second string A team in the recent match against Edinburgh but has not featured for the first team competitively. He moved to Glasgow in the summer from Exeter Chiefs. During his time there he was farmed out to Cornish Pirates and played for them in the Championship.

He had some experience of working with the Scotland team in the summer when he trained with the squad for the last two weeks of the Americas tour as one of three “development players”, alongside Rob Carmichael and Ben Afshar.