Townsend's injury setback increases Borders anxieties
By Lewis Stuart



GREGOR TOWNSEND, Scotland’s most capped player, will leave it to the last minute before deciding if his nagging ankle injury will allow him to face Glasgow on Saturday in the last of the festive derby matches in Scotland. He had thought he was over the chipped bone that had kept him out of action for almost three months but it started to trouble him again in the match against Edinburgh on Monday and despite being named in the Borders team, he is by no means certain to play.
Should Townsend fail the late fitness test, it would add to a series of problems for Borders before the game that is arguably their most important of the season so far, with ranking within Scotland, and therefore investment, at stake. With a number of players under the weather as a flu-type bug sweeps the camp, Steve Bates, the Borders coach, cannot predict who will be available and has taken the precaution of naming every available player on the bench to complete the squad.



Townsend chipped the ankle bone setting up the opening try 12 minutes into Borders’ second match of the season, the 24-15 defeat by Llanelli Scarlets. He returned to the side in the consecutive Challenge Cup matches against Brive and was looking forward to the challenges of going head-to-head against Phil Godman in the Edinburgh game on Monday and Dan Parks in the Glasgow match five days later.

However, the ankle started playing up again during the Edinburgh match and after trying to play through the pain, he came off after 67 minutes.

Townsend will be joined at the testing session by Simon Danielli, the wing, the highest profile of the sickness victims who was unable to make training yesterday. Since Danielli has, by some margin, looked the team’s strongest attacking threat, Bates will give him every chance to recover before deciding on the side that takes the field.

Borders’ problems come just as Glasgow are starting to emerge from the injury difficulties that have plagued them through the first half of the season. Jon Petrie, the captain, expects to make his return to action on Saturday, in time to challenge for a back row spot in Scotland’s Six Nations Championship squad. With Euan Murray, the prop, having returned earlier this month and Ben Prescott’ s comeback imminent, the injury list could soon be down to the broken ankles of Calvin Howarth and Andrew Wilson, and Donnie Macfadyen’s recurring knee problems.

They will, however, be without Mike Roberts, the wing who was sent off when playing for Ayr to get in some match practice after returning from a shoulder injury. He got his marching orders after being shown two yellow cards, and is expected to be suspended for two weeks, meaning he should be available for next week’s trip to Ulster.

If Borders play as named, then the starting XV will show just one change from the team that lost 25-30 at Murrayfield at the start of the week with Andy Miller coming in to play at flanker in place of Scott Gray, who is out of action for some time with a knee injury. It is not a significant alteration for Bates, who might have elected to start with Miller, more of a specialist in the openside role, anyway.

This is a game that could make or break the Borders season and have long-term implications for the club since the Scottish Rugby Union, which owns all three professional organisations, tries to tie its investment in with clubs’ success with extra cash available for the two sides that make it into the Heineken Cup at the expense of the one that is relegated to the Challenge Cup. Borders are the least-well funded of the three clubs and will struggle to be title contenders as long as that remains true. While Heineken Cup qualification depends on finishing positions in the Celtic League, the realistic goal for Borders is to finish ahead of Glasgow, Saturday’s opponents, which would be all-but impossible were they to lose at Netherdale.

Having effectively shared the series with Edinburgh, each side collecting five points from the two games, Borders know that if they fail to match or better that feat in the matches against Glasgow, they will then be relying on other sides if they are to have any chance of overtaking their rivals.

BORDERS (v Glasgow, at Galashiels, Saturday, 2pm) S Moffat; S Danielli, B MacDougall, C Hore, N Walker; G Townsend, C Cusiter; P Thomson (captain), R Ford , B Douglas, S MacLeod, O Palepoi, K Brown , A Miller, S Sititi. Replacements (from): T McGee, M Parr, S Scott, C Stewart, M Blair, J Dalziel, A Rennick, B McKerchar, C MacRae, G Law.

This article was posted on 29-Dec-2005, 09:42 by Hugh Barrow.