THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

DAVID FERGUSON CHIEF RUGBY WRITER
THE new faces creating stronger competition in Scottish rugby has brought fresh pain for the selectors.
Frank Hadden, Scotland's head coach, was yesterday praising the relative riches of talent in the national rugby squad to the extent of comparing the selection challenge to that of an England coach.

He is meticulous in his research and loves facts and figures, and knows more than most the task every Scotland coach faces in building success from a smaller field of players and poorer financial resources than every other competitor in the RBS Six Nations Championship.

It is unusual, he hinted at Murrayfield's official team announcement, for a Scotland coach to have to leave out experienced and on-form internationalists, and with that competition has come new difficulty for the coach and his assistants, George Graham and Alan Tait, crystallised by the decisions to drop Chris Paterson and Allister Hogg for the first time.

Coaches invariably prefer having the surfeit of players that creates tough selection meetings, but Hadden's body language suggested he was glad that part was over ahead of Scotland's opening Six Nations match. He acknowledged there was risk in his selection – six players are missing from the side that lost the last game, to Argentina in the World Cup quarter-final – but was precise and often curt when asked to elaborate on choices.

He said: "We've had to make the sort of decisions that are probably normally reserved for the English coach in terms of who they're going to play because of the options available to him. I'm not saying we have as many options as he has, or the French indeed, but we have as many options as the Welsh or the Irish now and that is a nice place for us to be.

"I would say the element of risk with the French selection is far greater than with ours, but every time you make a selection there is an element of risk especially when you've got options available to you. It's just inevitable that when the stakes are high there will be risk.

"The French won't know themselves how well they're going to play this Sunday, there's no doubt about that. That's one of the excitements about the Six Nations and the first game of the Six Nations.

"But for me, if there was one message to send out to the players it would be that I have faith in the depth of the our squad. I'm delighted with the options available and now I've proved I am."

Hadden was already missing Simon Taylor, Sean Lamont and Rob Dewey to injury, Marcus Di Rollo has temporarily retired and the coaches had left Scott Murray, the most-capped player, out of the squad.

So, with Nick De Luca, the Edinburgh centre, certain to slip into the vacant No 13 jersey, the remaining challenges were essentially what to do with the back row and back three. Then, Hadden explained, it was a question of finding a winning balance.

"Obviously, we sit down and assess a number of situations and the first thing we think about is that we want to win the match – that is the number one factor.

"Then you take into consideration a huge number of things: is the game home or away, pitch conditions, referee, opposition, what they're likely to do, current form, game-time people have had – we're going into this game with guys who haven't had a lot of game-time and with a number of guys who've maybe had a little too much.

"(With Paterson] game-time was one of them. We've named him as reserve stand-off, which is where he is currently playing, and we see him having a big impact on the game on Sunday.

"I know a lot is made of the starting XVs, not just amongst the media, but the players take that very seriously, but from a coach's perspective we tend to look at the group as a 22 and how we'll best deploy them to get the win on Sunday.

"I've always had a lot of faith in Dan Parks. Dan has taken quite a long time to win people over in this country, a lot longer than he did to win me over.

"Obviously, we considered very carefully Chris' outstanding goal-kicking performance in the World Cup, but last time I looked Dan was on 81 per cent, which would make him the second-best kicker in the Guinness Premiership."

On the back row, Hadden stated that once he'd opted for a specialist openside flanker in John Barclay, with skipper Jason White at blindside, it was an extremely close call between Dave Callam, Kelly Brown and Hogg for the No 8 and bench spots. Callam got the nod due to his power and punch in attack while Brown's form and ability to cover all back-row berths nudged Hogg out of the 22.

Hadden added that this selection could change for the Wales game on Saturday week irrespective of what materialised this weekend.

As for the style of play, Hadden revealed that he travelled to watch this weekend's Kiwi referee Paul Honiss in action at the Boroughmuir- Currie game last weekend and, with a referees meeting in London being attended yesterday by George Graham, was hopeful of more fluid games than was the case during the recent World Cup.

"There is every indication that there will be a bit more rhythm in the attack of both sides this weekend than we got at the World Cup. It's always our intention to play expansively, if we possibly can, and we'll just have to wait and see whether that's possible on Sunday."

CAP BONUS FOR DE LUCA

WHILE senior players worried about their future in a highly-competitive Scotland squad, Nick De Luca beamed after being handed his international debut in the week he celebrates his 24th birthday.

This was one of more expected selections in what proved out to be a largely unexpected starting XV, as De Luca has been the form centre throughout this season with Edinburgh. He just missed out on selection for the World Cup, but used that time to try to shave rough edges off his naturally ebullient style of play and improve his defensive ability to the standards required for the Test arena.

It remains doubtful whether he would have earned his call-up yet had the more experienced Rob Dewey and Marcus Di Rollo been available, but there is little doubt that the excitement generated by De Luca's attackingedge will have made his selection for Sunday's RBS Six Nations clash with France one of the most popular.

"At the back of your mind you always think you have a chance," he said, "but you try to block it out and just make sure you're training well and playing well, but when the announcement does come you can't ignore it and now it's about focusing on the game.

"I'm by no means the complete package yet. The big thing is the error count; I've got that down. I was liable to throw some crazy off-loads and luckily they have come off this year. My defence has come on a lot with the help of Andy Robinson and (Alan] Tait.

"I called my dad (Mike] to tell him on Monday and he was as emotional as me; he's in Rome just now and is coming back on Friday. With me now it's nerves. The excitement will come. The game is still a long way away and I just want to make sure I don't burn myself out."

This article was posted on 31-Jan-2008, 08:11 by Hugh Barrow.