Scotland will have the one player they could not afford to lose for their Calcutta Cup match against England, after their medical team confirmed that Finn Russell has recovered from his concussion in good time to play for them tomorrow.
Russell suffered the injury in the first half of their game against Ireland in the previous round, when he collided with Darcy Graham, but he was found to be symptom-free 24 hours later, and has since completed a 12-day return-to-play protocol before recommencing full contact training while the team were away in camp in Spain this week.
Graham was not so lucky. Technically, he is available. He was also declared symptom-free within 48 hours of the collision, and has completed the 12-day recovery process, but, in a welcome sign of just how seriously this Scottish setup takes these injuries, their medical and coaching staff decided he ought to have another week’s rest anyway.
Russell would technically have been allowed to go back on to the field against Ireland since he passed his Head Injury Assessment, but the team preferred to err on the side of caution.
“Every brain injury is different,” the head coach, Gregor Townsend, said. “I’m not a medical expert, but obviously one was a bigger -incident because it required Darcy to go to hospital.
“Finn had actually passed the standard HIA but just had some memory loss, so we made the -decision not to put him on. But following the game he was symptom-free, and as he has progressed from light exercise, to skills training, to contact training, he’s been fine.”
Scotland deserve credit for their caution, and for setting a good example for all levels of the game. “I believe Scotland have always been at the forefront of concussion-management and research,” Townsend said.
“As a head coach you want to make sure that you’ve got the information in front of you to evaluate how much of a risk it is to play. It is definitely easier to make those decisions when you’re talking about a muscle injury, but this is different, which is why we just felt it was right that Darcy doesn’t play this weekend.”
Graham’s omission is one of three changes to the team. He is replaced by the Glasgow wing Kyle Rowe, while Pierre Schoeman and Jamie Ritchie have moved up from the bench in a switch with the men they’re replacing, Rory Sutherland and Matt Fagerson, who both started against Ireland.
England: M Smith (Harlequins); T Freeman (Northampton), O Lawrence (Bath), H Slade (Exeter), O Sleightholme (Northampton); F Smith (Northampton), A Mitchell (Northampton); E Genge (Bristol), L Cowan-Dickie (Sale), W Stuart (Bath), M Itoje (Saracens, capt), O Chessum (Leicester), T Curry (Sale), B Earl (Saracens), T Willis (Saracens). Replacements: J George (Saracens), F Baxter (Harlequins), J Heyes (Leicester), T Hill (Bath), C Cunningham-South (Harlequins), B Curry (Sale), H Randall (Bristol), E Daly (Saracens).
Scotland: B Kinghorn (Toulouse), K Rowe (Glasgow), H Jones (Glasgow), T Jordan (Glasgow), D Van der Merwe (Edinburgh), F Russell (Bath, co-capt), B White (Toulon); P Schoeman (Edinburgh), D Cherry (Edinburgh), Z Fagerson (Glasgow), J Gray (Bordeaux), G Gilchrist (Edinburgh), J Ritchie (Edinburgh), R Darge (Glasgow, co-capt), J Dempsey (Glasgow). Replacements: E Ashman (Edinburgh), R Sutherland (Glasgow), W Hurd (Leicester), S Skinner (Edinburgh), G Brown (Glasgow), M Fagerson (Glasgow), J Dobie (Glasgow), S McDowall (Glasgow).
It means Townsend is going to stick with the 6-2 split between forwards and backs, even after the strategy backfired against Ireland after the two injuries meant their spare scrum half Jamie Dobie ended up playing most of the game on the wing.
The decision to bring in Ritchie is another nod to the way the game is going. “Jamie’s massive point of difference right now is winning the ball in the air,” Townsend said. “England kick it more than any other team. There are going to be a lot of contestable kicks, and when teams kick to you, you naturally end up doing more kicking. And if the game does develop into a real contest on the floor, we also know we’ve got the personnel there to make sure we’re taking those opportunities.”
Townsend was not too concerned about any of the pundits’ pre-match chit-chat about whether or not Scotland’s forwards are underpowered. He has the confidence of a coach whose team have now won four of these games in four years.
“It’s great to be able to be part of a Scotland team that has been winning against England because in my time as a player and a supporter that didn’t happen very often,” he said, “but they’re favourites because playing at home is so important, on the back of a very good win, too.”
So long as Russell is fit to play, you guess Scotland are absolutely fine with it being that way.
