Scots Abroad VIII (or let's spot the new messiah)

[hugh_woatmeigh]

Good win for Jon Welsh’s Newcastle v Exeter today.

Didn't see the game but that Exeter pack is one of the best in Europe. I assume he held his own at the very least.

Still not good enough for Scotland?

[hugh_woatmeigh]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jon- ... -2f9f87s3d

Pay Walled so here is the copy paste courtesy of the weegie fan forum.

Jon Welsh is ready and able to serve
January 7 2018, 12:01am,

Welsh can solve Scotland’s tighthead prop crisis and resurrect his international career

If Gregor Townsend decides to make the short drive from his home in the Borders to Kingston Park today, he’ll have to figure out a grip that allows him to hold the steering wheel with the fingers of both hands crossed. Lining up at tight-head prop for Newcastle against Exeter is Jon Welsh, the man who suddenly finds himself in pole position to wear another dark-coloured number three shirt when Scotland begin their Six Nations in Cardiff.

The former Glasgow Warrior, who was right next to Al Kellock when he hoisted the Pro12 trophy into Belfast skies in 2015, is pretty much the only experienced man left standing on the right side of the front row after Willem Nel broke an arm, Simon Berghan got himself banned and Zander Fagerson hurt his foot when a bench landed on it in training.

Glasgow announced on Friday that the 21-year-old will be out for up to eight weeks, which would see him miss Wales, France and England at the very least. Having been unavailable for all of last year’s Six Nations, Nel faces a battle to have any sort of meaningful say in this one, while Berghan won’t have played since December when his suspension ends on February 4, the day after the opener at the Principality stadium.

Of the other tightheads around and about, D’Arcy Rae and Murray McCallum are both still raw, while the more travelled Moray Low has made only two Premiership starts in as many seasons. Amid ferocious competition, he again doesn’t even make the Exeter bench for the trip to the northeast.

It all adds up to Welsh having every chance of winning his 12th cap in Cardiff. He was drafted into the November Test squad mid-series after Nel went down against Samoa, but hasn’t seen any action since the fateful World Cup meeting with Australia in October 2015. His last — as in, most recent — touch of the ball in Test rugby was the pick-up which Craig Joubert wrongly penalised, not having spotted a touch from Wallaby scrum-half Nick Phipps.

Welsh has long since moved on, but his cap collection hasn’t. The prospect of getting moving again next month must now seem very real. “There’s an autumn Test squad that obviously did brilliantly, and the competition’s there,” says the 31-year-old, understandably reluctant to shrug off the claims of the younger contenders. “I don’t think I’m owed anything, but I’ll be fighting for it, 100 per cent.”

If Welsh does get the nod, it won’t be purely by default. In two and a half seasons with the Falcons, he’s managed to become both less round and more rounded, shifting 10 kilos in a bid to become more dynamic and add layers beyond set-piece.

His scrummaging has improved in the relentless examination room that is Premiership front-five play, and it seems that Welsh has made a virtue of necessity in this respect.

“I played my first game for Newcastle six days after Australia, and the first scrum collapsed. The second one, the ball just sits there. Their front row was Alex Waller, Dylan Hartley and Kieran Brookes and I’ve got [Rob] Vickers and Scott Lawson beside me. I’m going, ‘Why’s nobody using the ball. It was just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze: nobody’s moving.

“I’m like, ‘Somebody use this ball!’ It wasn’t until somebody collapsed, somebody got a wee edge that it’s moved to the back of the scrum and gets used. That was it for the full game.

“Most teams in England will chap the door first on your set-piece, and Micky Ward [the Falcons forwards coach] has been fantastic for me. He’s opened my eyes to loads of things I can bring.

“We’ll sit down and look at everything, whether my left shoulder’s popping up, I’m turning in, my back’s rounded… there’s a hundred things he’ll go through, and it might just be a case of moving a couple of inches, but it can make a big difference. I’ve only worked for two or three weeks with [Scotland forwards coach] Dan McFarland, but he seems very similar: very detailed.”

The drop in bulk mainly happened last summer, when Welsh went from 128kg to 118. Neither he nor his coaches have detected any drop-off in his set-piece work as a result, but there has been an effect in other areas.

“Everything has improved: my line speed, metreage, everything,” says the former electrician whom Sean Lineen brought into the Glasgow fold on the back of his displays with GHA and Whitecraigs. “With my previous weight, as long as you can truck about, do your job, then fine, but you say to yourself, if the scrum’s good, the driving maul’s good but if I’m not getting to that ruck, not carrying ball, am I happy with that?”

Townsend and McFarland certainly wouldn’t be. The pace of game they want to play was clear in November, when the unheralded likes of Darryl Marfo and Jamie Bhatti stood up well to its demands. At that stage, the front-row injury crisis was confined — if that is the correct term — to loosehead and hooker, but now the tightheads are causing drama too.

With Marfo himself not having played since November because of a back complaint, the overall picture has got worse, not better, and it won’t have escaped Scotland’s attention that Welsh has history on both sides of the scrum.

It was under Townsend at Glasgow that he moved to tighthead, a process which began in early 2012 when he scrummaged there for Scotland A in live sessions against the full team and impressed Andy Robinson, who was then national coach. It’s been tighthead pretty much ever since, bar a brief flit back at the start of last season when Falcons were short on the left. “All the looseheads were ribbing me, ‘We’re not in the ’80s anymore, Welshy!’ Even my bind was old-fashioned — I hadn’t realised the game had moved on so much in four years.”

Clearly a glutton for punishment, he’s watched back the Twickenham finale a couple of times. “I remember sitting there thinking, ‘Have I lost us the game?’ The analysis guys then said no, ‘We’ve looked at it a million times, it’s come off their guy, it’s not a penalty’.

“That was on the Sunday. I flew here on the Monday, and they asked if I wanted a few days off. I said, ‘No, get me into training’. The worst thing would have been for me to sit stewing on it.”

Not least because you never know what fate is going to cook up next.

[Which Tyler]

https://www.premiershiprugby.com/citize ... -the-week/

[Mikey Brown]

Is that for Denton's tackling or Welsh's rucking skills?

[Big D]

Lang starting for Quins

[Big D]

Lang starting for Quins

He looks like he one for us to keep an eye on. Did well for 1st try and scored 2nd.

[General Zod]

http://www.international.ruggas.co.za/?p=2173

Interesting hype in the article!

[Big D]

http://www.international.ruggas.co.za/?p=2173

Interesting hype in the article!

Scots born?

[OptimisticJock]

Hamilton playing in the diddy cup now on bt sport.

[General Zod]

http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/sp ... ng-1165073

Matt Scott definitely coming back up the road, according to this paper. Didn’t realise he was only 27.

[no sleep]

Haven't seen him play in ages, but I always thought Scott was really good. Seems coaches don't rate him though. Any ideas what the issue is?

[Big D]

Haven't seen him play in ages, but I always thought Scott was really good. Seems coaches don't rate him though. Any ideas what the issue is?

Coach just doesn't rate him. Think Gloucs fans would prefer to keep him based on what I've read.

A backline of a new 9, hickey, van der Merwe, Scott, Bennett, Hoyland/Graham, King Blairhorn is pretty decent. A million miles from the shite of a year or 2 ago.

[hugh_woatmeigh]

Haven't seen him play in ages, but I always thought Scott was really good. Seems coaches don't rate him though. Any ideas what the issue is?

All of Johnson, Vern and Townsend seem to have have outcast particular players. It's happened to Barclay, Welsh and to a lesser extent Strauss & Scott. It's unacceptable IMO. We do not have the playing numbers to justify this.

[Mikey Brown]

Haven't seen him play in ages, but I always thought Scott was really good. Seems coaches don't rate him though. Any ideas what the issue is?

Defending. Alignment more than tackling I think, seems to have been the issue before. I haven’t seen enough full 80s to really judge how it’s come on but I think he’s very good going forward, and crucially something a bit different.

[OptimisticJock]

Haven't seen him play in ages, but I always thought Scott was really good. Seems coaches don't rate him though. Any ideas what the issue is?

Coach just doesn't rate him. Think Gloucs fans would prefer to keep him based on what I've read.

A backline of a new 9, hickey, van der Merwe, Scott, Bennett, Hoyland/Graham, King Blairhorn is pretty decent. A million miles from the shite of a year or 2 ago.

Hickey?

Still hoping SHC gets back to his best and wouldnt mind seeing Lowe at 15s just to see what hes got

[Big D]

Haven't seen him play in ages, but I always thought Scott was really good. Seems coaches don't rate him though. Any ideas what the issue is?

Coach just doesn't rate him. Think Gloucs fans would prefer to keep him based on what I've read.

A backline of a new 9, hickey, van der Merwe, Scott, Bennett, Hoyland/Graham, King Blairhorn is pretty decent. A million miles from the shite of a year or 2 ago.

Hickey?

Still hoping SHC gets back to his best and wouldnt mind seeing Lowe at 15s just to see what hes got

The kiwi 10 that has been signed.

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/rugby-un ... -1-4619265

[OptimisticJock]

Will have to try and catch a game or 2

[hugh_woatmeigh]

Not that Vellacott would want to be near our squad after that joke of a performance but the Wigglesworth call up shows just how far away he is from selection.

[Mikey Brown]

This just caught my eye among some very positive chat about young Redpath at 12 for England juniors.

Anyone know if Redpath feels English or if he's more of a Moriarty type?

Puja

His dad is quoted as saying that England are his first choice and was honest enough to say that money played a big part in that decision.

Possibly old/bad news but I haven’t kept up with the situation to be honest.

[Big D]

Its monetary for the moment as he gets Sale money by being EQ and thus helps his own situation.

[Mellsblue]

Not sure of the intricacies but I’m fairly certain as he’s not in Sale’s senior squad so he won’t count towards EPS % incentive.
Redpath Snr meant Premiership wages and England team money.

[Big D]

Not sure of the intricacies but I’m fairly certain as he’s not in Sale’s senior squad so he won’t count towards EPS % incentive.
Redpath Snr meant Premiership wages and England team money.

Sorry I thought the club's of England u20s get money too.

The fact still remains that any decision on nationality is still temporary until he is called up to an English/French/Scottish full international squad and plays. And at the moment there are clear financial benefits to favouring towards England until he needs to make the permanent decision. Who knows, in theory he could sign for Racing and earn loads and play for France.

[Mellsblue]

Not sure of the intricacies but I’m fairly certain as he’s not in Sale’s senior squad so he won’t count towards EPS % incentive.
Redpath Snr meant Premiership wages and England team money.

Sorry I thought the club's of England u20s get money too.

The fact still remains that any decision on nationality is still temporary until he is called up to an English/French/Scottish full international squad and plays. And at the moment there are clear financial benefits to favouring towards England until he needs to make the permanent decision. Who knows, in theory he could sign for Racing and earn loads and play for France.

I could well be wrong on u20 players. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Yep, nothing is set in stone. Just with the sheer numbers coming through the chance of moving from u20 international to test player is far harder in England. I would imagine that being a Prem player with no test prospects is less lucrative than a Pro12/14/24 (however many teams you have in five years) contract and regular match fees from the SRU. Financially the landscape can quickly change. More importantly, it’s worrying that it’s such a big factor in a player’s decision.

[no sleep]

Just spotted an old messiah: Harry Leonard - remember him, MacPhail scholar same year as Grant Gilchrist. Now playing tier 3 rugby in England with Rosslyn Park.

[Mikey Brown]

My Matt Scott news alerts have been going off on my phone. Managed 50-60 minutes off the bench (for some reason) for Gloucester this weekend and didn't pick up a single career-threatening injury as far as I can tell.

Can't say I saw a whole lot among the highlights but ran some good lines and did score the winner, even if it was a walk-in.

I'll keep you guys posted.