6N: England v Scotland: Darcy Graham decision was no decision at all for Gregor Townsend
Yesterday at 05:05 PM
DARCY GRAHAM will not have been pleased to discover that he wasn’t going to be selected for Saturday’s Calcutta Cup match against England at Twickenham, but he accepted the decision without complaint, according to head coach Gregor Townsend.
The winger will be a frustrated onlooker this weekend, which is particularly cruel given the injury woes he has had to endure over the last 18 months, but his head coach explained that he the 27-year-old was never really a serious contender to play in this match following a nasty head collision with Finn Russell a fortnight ago, despite coming through his return to play protocols without any hold-ups.
"I think he was very much accepting and at peace with the decision,” said Townsend. “I think sometimes we take the decision out of the players’ hands, so they know early enough that that’s going to be the case and they’re focused on how they get back after that.
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"The protocols for any concussion follow either a seven day or 12 day [process], and Darcy fell into the 12 day. 24 hours after the injury he became symptom-free which is great. So yes, we could have pushed things on but we just felt with the nature of the injury that it wasn’t right for him to come back as quickly as the protocols would have allowed."
Graham’s bad luck means opportunity knocks once again for Kyle Rowe, a player who has never let Scotland down but is unfortunate to play in a position where Scotland have been spoiled for choice in recent years.
“He has always delivered when he's had a chance,” agreed Townsend. “12 months ago he started at full-back in Cardiff and played very well, then played in the wing the following week against France and played well.
“He’s in really good form too, he’s not played that many minutes over the last few weeks but prior to that with Glasgow he was playing very well.
“We trained [full-on] on Thursday and Saturday, and Darcy wasn’t involved in those two sessions, while Kyle was outstanding, so again that gives you real confidence that someone’s coming in who is a very good player as well.”
Meanwhile, former skipper Jamie Ritchie has come back into the side at blindside flanker, with Matt Fagerson drop to the bench, with the Edinburgh player’s work over the tackled man not the only factor in that decision. “I think Jamie played really well against Italy and he has been very good on the ground and in the air,” explained Townsend.
“England kick it more than any other team, so there are going to be contested balls, andwhich means we’ll kick back more because if teams kick to you then you naturally kick more than you normally do, and Jamie’s massive point of difference right nowis winning the ball in the air.
“And if the game does develop intoa real contest on the floorand the referee is allowing thatwe know with Jamie and Rory Darge and others we’ve got the personnel there to make surewe’re taking those opportunities.”
Meanwhile, Townsend opted to stick with Grant Gilchrist and Jonny Gray in the second-row, despite the veteran warhorses not quite hitting the levels of a few years back so far in this championship, with Townsend taking the view that their experience could be a valuable asset on Saturday..
"We look at every position with Jonny has not played a huge amount of minutes because his first game back from being out injured for a couple of months was against Italy.” the coach reasoned. “I thought he went really well in that game but we took him off earlier because we know he’s just coming back to full fitness.
“Then it was a tough game for our pack against Ireland for a number of reasons, but I felt both second-rows were a big part of how we got back into the game in the last 10 minutes of the first half.
"We took Jonny off early again in that game, then he came off the bench and did really well for Bordeaux at the weekend, so I think him and Jack Dempsey are now almost back to full match fitness.
"Jonny is obviously raring to go, Grant as well, they’ve played in these fixtures over the last few years and before that when we weren’t as successful, but they’ve been involved in a lot of our success against England [and] they bring experience too.
"So yeah, like everyone on our team, they’ll be wanting to play better than we did against Ireland."
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