Scots lose their South African muscle

Yesterday at 02:56 PM

NEWS: Injuries are continuing to pile up for Scotland ahead of their Six Nations campaign.

Scotland's South African hooker Dylan Richardson has been ruled out of the tournament with a shoulder injury.

The 26-year-old's absence was confirmed by Scotland a day after it was announced that both captain Sione Tuipulotu and lock Scott Cummings would be unavailable for the entirety of the Championship as well through injury.

Gregor Townsend has not opted for a like-for-like replacement for the Sharks front row forward, but has rather chosen to call up Sale Sharks winger Arron Reed.

Reed earned the first of his three Scotland caps against Canada last July.

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* Meanwhile, Scotland co-captain Rory Darge insists there is still "massive excitement" about what the team can achieve in the upcoming Six Nations.

Tuipulotu suffered a pectoral muscle injury in training with Glasgow last week that requires surgery and will keep him out for several months.

Warriors teammate Darge, who will step up to jointly lead the side alongside flyhalf Finn Russell, as they did in last year's championship, believes Scotland can still set their sights high despite the loss of their talismanic centre.

"I wasn't expecting to be here this time last week," said the flank, speaking at the Six Nations launch event in Rome.

"I am gutted for Sione. The form he was in leading up to it has been outstanding.

"Sometimes it is hard to believe he can keep up the standards he was playing at. He is a mate and I was excited for him coming into this tournament – he was building up so much momentum.

"But injuries happen, it is one of the uncontrollables in rugby. It is something you have to deal with. We just have to go into camp and control what we can. There is still massive excitement about this campaign – we are getting really excited for it.

"We have got Italy and Ireland at home in our first two games and we know what's going to be needed to get results there. It's going to take a massive amount of preparation and effort because we are playing against good teams. So there is a massive amount of excitement from the group's point of view, despite the injuries."

Scotland squad

Backs: Fergus Burke, Matt Currie, Jamie Dobie, Darcy Graham, George Horne, Rory Hutchinson, Huw Jones, Tom Jordan, Blair Kinghorn, Stafford McDowall, Arron Reed, Kyle Rowe, Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe, Ben White.