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RUGBY WORLD
CUP SELECTION
‘A FRESH SLATE
FOR EVERYONE’,
SAYS WATSON
ugby World Cup selection is
“a clean slate” for everyone
in Gregor Townsend’s 40-man
training squad, says Edinburgh and
Scotland back-row Hamish Watson.
More often than not, the back-row is
an area of serious competition in any
international squad, but Scotland are
particularly blessed with loose forward
talent.
One such player is Hamish Watson, and
the flanker’s performances for Scotland
have made him one of the side’s key
players in recent years.
Having picked up a hand injury while
playing for Edinburgh, Watson was
unavailable for most of Scotland’s
Guinness Six Nations games but the back-
row showed his class with two excellent
showings towards the tail end of the
championship, breaking the record for the
amount of defenders beaten by a Scotland
player across the entire tournament in one
20-minute spell against Wales.
But although he admits that he is “in a
pretty good spot”, Watson was coy on
whether his impressive Six Nations form
might weigh in his favour come World Cup
selection.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Watson said, when
asked if past games would play a part
in Head Coach’s Gregor Townsend’s
selection process.
“Obviously if boys have had a really good
Six Nations or good Autumn, that’s going
to be in the back of the coaches’ minds,
[but] I think it’s a fresh slate for everyone.
“You’ve got to just turn up every day in
these sessions because you could have
had the best Six Nations of your life, but if
you’ve not pitched up the last six weeks
in camp or had the wrong attitude, you’re
probably not going to get picked.”
Watson was also keen to stress the
importance of Scotland’s warm-up games,
and how players fare in them, when it
comes to earning a seat on the plane to
Japan.
“I think the games will have a big say in his
selection,” he explained.
“I think Gregor will have a slight idea in his
head from training, but then, if you don’t
show up and pitch up in those games,
then it’s going to be pretty hard to select
boys.
“In the first few games, you want to try and
play as well as you can.”
However, Watson is vying for a place
alongside several other proven
internationalists as well as some exciting
youngsters.
This competition, however, is pleasing to
see, said Watson, and helps to keep each
player on their game.
“It feels good to have a lot of competition
in the back-row,” Watson told the media.
“That’s been one of our strongest parts of
our team for a while now and it’s nine of us
in the back row plus Sam Skinner, so it’s
great to all be pushing each other.
“Obviously there’s going to be a few
gutted boys when the squad gets cut
down because you can only take maybe
five or six so it’s going to be pretty tough
but we’re all just training hard and we’ll
see what happens.”
The back-row also faces competition from
second rows like Blade Thomson and Sam
Skinner, whose versatility means that they
can just as easily be deployed further
back in the scrum.
Despite having just a handful of caps to
his name, Skinner in particular has proved
to be impressive both in the engine room
and when filling in at blindside flanker.
On the Exeter man and his back-row
versatility, Watson said: "We’ve got so
many back rows at the moment so he’s not
been swapping in probably as much as
he would have been doing during the Six
Nations when we had a lot of injuries.
“I think it’s good for the coaches to know
that they’ve got Sam there, so that if, like
happened in the Six Nations, there are
a lot of injuries, he can cover there, and
cover really well.“For him, it’s just trying to make sure that
he keeps on top of it and still knows all the
back-row roles and plays, and knows the
six role in the lineout as well just in case
he does get called upon there.”
Watson also revealed that Townsend
expects a level of versatility of all of his
back-row players, saying: “With the way
the way we like to play and the way
Gregor likes us to play, the back-row are
all used as link players.
“We are in the wide channels a fair bit so
it’s good to have good chemistry with the
backs.
“It’s a huge part of our game so we need
to make sure we link up well with them.”
But according to Watson, Townsend isn’t
the only coach to have given guidance to
the players in Scotland camp this week,
with ex-Scotland captain Kelly Brown
returning to help with their Rugby World
Cup preparations.
“It’s really good to have Kelly back in
camp,” the 27-year-old said.
“He did a bit last season as well and he’s
obviously a really experienced player.
“It’s great to get new people in and
get their perspective on different stuff
around the breakdown; every coach has a
different spin on things so it’s good to get
him in and change things up a bit.
“Also, just to do extra work ons with him at
the end of day, it’s going to benefit all of
the boys who are at the breakdown.
“I think it’s good to have a coach who’s
pretty recent out of the game as well,” he
continued.
“They were only playing a couple of years
ago so they know what it’s like and they’ve
probably played under the slightly newer
rules at the breakdown.”R
74 • WWW.SCRUMMAGAZINE.COM • ISSUE 116 2019
RUGBY WORLD CUP - SCOTLAND PREVIEW