Scotland Rugby World Cup: Darcy Graham on course to be fit for South Africa but doubts over forward

The sun came out to welcome Scotland to the Cote d’Azur on Sunday and head coach Gregor Townsend delivered some bright news on Darcy Graham who he believes is on course to be fit for his team’s Rugby World Cup opener against South Africa.

Gregor Townsend at Edinburgh Airport as Scotland depart for the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

The prolific winger missed the final warm-up match against Georgia at Murrayfield with a quad strain but Townsend is confident he will have recovered in time for the Pool B clash with the Springboks in Marseille.

“Darcy is good and I expect him to train fully this week,” said Townsend, speaking at Nice airport shortly after the squad flew in from Edinburgh. “We will not train till Tuesday, we will have meetings on Monday and a walk through. Given it is a Sunday game we will not start things till Tuesday but he should be available for that. I was hoping he would be able to train last week and he did train, but not with the team. He is now back up to full availability for this week.

“We only had two sessions last week and he is in our thoughts for this week. It was deemed it was better he built up his training with the medical team and we have a full week’s training.”

With seven tries in his last four Scotland appearances, Graham’s value to the team cannot be overstated, although Kyle Steyn has proved an impressive alternative on the right wing, playing in the warm-up Tests against Italy, France away and Georgia and scoring three tries.

The news was not so good on Graham’s Edinburgh team-mate Luke Crosbie who could be a doubt for the South Africa game at Stade Velodrome. “We will see how he returns as he got injured in training before the Georgia game,” said Townsend. “He got a rib injury and we will see how he progresses. He has not trained with the team since but I was chatting to him and he is making good progress and I would imagine he will return to full training this week. It is more whether he can do contact this week.”

Scotland arrive in France in good spirits and with a solid warm-up programme behind them. Home wins over Italy, France and Georgia and a narrow defeat by the French in Saint-Etienne represent an impressive summer campaign but the real work starts this week as Scotland attempt to navigate a route out of Pool B, the toughest in the tournament with the world’s top two ranked nations, Ireland and South Africa, as well as Tonga and Romania.

The Scots will base themselves close to Valbonne, a village in the Alpes-Maritimes department where temperatures reached 30 degrees over the weekend. They’ve already held a training camp there and returned before the match against France so have had a chance to acclimatise. “June was warm and we worked hard in that ten-day camp, then we were back for a few days before we went up to Saint-Etienne,” said Townsend. “Our players are fit, rugby fit. I am sure the heat will be a factor in a stadium that holds 80,000 it will be even warmer but it will be a factor for both teams so we will embrace it.”