Scotland XV looks good - but it's tough to ask senior pros to play 30 games a season

Sione Tuipulotu has been named as Scotland co-captain for the tour game against Chile which will be his 30th match of the season. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images for Scottish Rugby)

I like the look of the side Gregor Townsend has picked to play Chile on Saturday. It’s a strong team with a nice vibe around it. There’s a good youthful representation, with guys getting their first or second caps, but there’s experience too and it should be strong enough for Scotland to win comfortably in Santiago.

Like last week against the USA, it’s powerful line-up and there are a couple of interesting selections, notably Kyle Steyn at 13. He’s not started a Test at 13 before but it’s a position he knows and likes. When he came to Glasgow Warriors in 2019 he played at outside centre in our run to the Pro14 final. He was also mainly a 13 for the Griquas in South Africa where he was captain so he’s had plenty of rugby there. It’s a bit different switching at Test level but this is probably the game to try it, and that’s not being disrespectful to Chile.

There are a few young boys playing again. It’s nice to see Dylan Richardson getting another opportunity at hooker and I’m really pleased to see Gregor Brown at six after a tough season with injury. He played well in the second row when he came on in the URC final for Glasgow so it will be interesting to see him in the back row against Chile.

Ben Healy has a chance to impress for Scotland against Chile.

Aside from Kyle, the experience and quality is provided by Jamie Ritchie and Sione Tuipulotu who are co-captains. It’s Sione’s 30th game of the season which is interesting. I don’t think this will be as tough a test as Scotland had against Canada and the US but it’s still a lot of rugby they’re putting in the legs of their top-line internationals. Rory Darge is another who is playing again this week, albeit he’s starting on the bench.

We’ve got the Lions tour next year and you might have thought this was going to be a summer when the contenders would get a little bit of a rest. But you’ve got Sione, Jamie Ritchie, Rory and Kyle Steyn all playing again this weekend. It’s a lot of rugby given the season they’ve had which began with the World Cup training camp last May and won’t finish until the Uruguay game on July 27.

Thirty games in a season is tough. I think the most I ever played was 32 and I was absolutely floored at the end of it. It took me quite a long time to recover. That was quite a few years ago and I think the intensity is higher now, particularly with the South African teams coming into the URC. It's a lot of rugby and with the final game against Uruguay falling outside the Test window Scotland will have to pick a team composed of home-based players.

I certainly think Sione is a strong contender to start at 12 for the Lions. He and Bundee Aki would be the frontrunners to play there in the first Test if you were selecting now but there’s obviously a lot of rugby to be played before next summer.

Patrick Harrison during an Edinburgh Rugby training session.

I’d imagine those senior Scotland players will be given around five weeks off when they return from South America, although that won’t be complete rest. There will maybe be two weeks of complete rest and then they’ll have to do two or three running sessions and two or three weights sessions per week while they’re on holiday.

The hardest thing about being a summer tourist is that although you get time off when you return, the expectation is that you will be pretty much ready to go within a couple of weeks of returning to club training. That can be tough and it’s why it’s nice to see someone like Zander Fagerson having the summer off so he can fully relax in the knowledge that he has a full pre-season ahead of him. He’ll be keeping himself ticking over but mentally he’ll be able to switch off and he won’t have his pre-season compressed into two to three weeks when he comes back. It’s one of the big advantages of giving a player the summer off.

One player who is set to play for Scotland this weekend for the first time is hooker Patrick Harrison, who has been named on the bench. I’d seen bits of pieces of Paddy and then he was drafted to Watsonians last year for the Super Series Championship so I got to work with him. It’s good to see him getting a chance because he’s not had much game-time at Edinburgh. He’s a good player, really tidy around the park with good skills.

He keeps the ball in hand and is an aggressive defender. He’s a young guy, turned 22 last month, and his set-piece work is improving and is an area of his game which is solid. But like all young players, he needs games and it’s up to someone higher up at Murrayfield to work out how good young players get the game-time they need to improve. The only way hookers will learn is through matches against quality opposition, and the same goes for scrum-halves, 10s and lineout callers. The best learning environment is the harshest one and there is no comparison to a live match.

Jamie Ritchie is also in action for Edinburgh.

There are a lot of good Scottish young hookers about but the question is how we give them enough meaningful game time to turn them into Test match players. So it’s great to see Paddy involved. He came through at Peebles and played at centre so he’s quick and powerful. I think he moved to hooker at around 16 or 17 so he’s not been playing in that position for a huge period of time and I’d like to see him used more frequently by Edinburgh.

The Chile game is also a big opportunity for Ben Healy. The Scotland No 10 pecking order after Finn Russell is a bit up in the air. Ben has been his understudy all season, partly due to the lack of other options, and I don’t mean to be harsh towards Ben when I say that. He’s had a lot of minutes at Edinburgh and controlled the team reasonably well. Adam Hastings has been injured for the most of the season and Ross Thompson only started getting some time at Glasgow towards the end of the campaign, and Tom Jordan does not qualify until November.

So this is an important game for Ben, his first start of the tour. Last week’s match against the US was a bit flat. Having spoken to people out there I know conditions were really difficult. It was really hot and humid which made the ball slippy. There was plenty of effort as you would expect but it certainly felt like there was a lack of intensity in that game.

Ben now gets his chance against Chile and it’s up to him to take control, keep the team on the front foot and playing at pace so they can open Chile up and really put them under pressure. I felt Scotland were too eager to put the ball in behind the USA last week and kicked the ball away early in the phase count. They never really put the American multi-phase defence under pressure and although the conditions will have played a part in this tactic, I just felt there was an opportunity for Scotland to control possession and the game with ball in hand.

Hopefully we’ll see that this weekend but Chile have some good defenders. Three of their players top the stats for dominant collisions in the MLR this year so they’ll be well drilled, and they’ll hit you hard. Scotland need to weather that and try to break them down. I think Chile will be another step up in opposition from the last few weeks, but I still expect a pretty convincing Scotland victory. It might take 50 or 60 minutes to break them down but Scotland’s quality on the bench will certainly play its part and I’d expect another 25-30 points victory.