The Scotland rugby squad touched down in the south of France yesterday as their World Cup campaign began in earnest, with head coach Gregor Townsend not quite reporting a clean bill of health, but optimistic that Darcy Graham will train fully this week and be fit for Sunday's tournament opener against South Africa in Marseilles.
The winger missed Scotland’s final warm-up match against Georgia at Murrayfield last Saturday with a quad strain.
“Darcy is good and I expect him to train fully this week," said Townsend. “Given it is a Sunday game we will not start things till Tuesday, and he should be available for that.
“I was hoping he would be able to train last week and he did train, but not with the team. “We only had two sessions and it was deemed it was better that he built up his fitness with the medical team. He is now back up to full availability for this week and in our thoughts for this weekend.”
The other injury concern is flanker Luke Crosbie, and his chances of being fit to face the Springboks are less certain, although that is not a major concern as he is unlikely to make the match-day 23 for that game in any case.
“Luke was one of three guys [alongside Graham and Kyle Steyn] who got injured in one training session on the Tuesday before our final warm-up match against Georgia and has not trained since then," said Townsend.
“He got a rib injury and we will see how he progresses. I was chatting to him, and he is making good progress and I would imagine he will return to full training this week. It is more whether he can do contact this week.”
“We have not had a selection meeting [for the South Africa game] yet,” Townsend continued. “We had two days of hard training last week and part of that was to make sure the players have that match conditioning. It was the last chance we had to have a big session with the players and to implement what we want to do against South Africa.
“There was a team run at training but we will finalise what the 23 will be after we find out who is available this week as we didn’t have everybody available last week.”
Given the physicality of modern international rugby, arriving in camp with just two relatively minor injuries in the squad and no last minute call-offs will be a big relief to Townsend. The coach is also feeling pretty positive about where his players are psychologically, given that they have been in decent form this summer – winning all three home matches and pushing France all the way in Saint-Etienne – but also able to fly under the radar due to most of the outside focus being on pool favourites Ireland and South Africa.
“We know our best game can defeat any team, but we also know our pool is very hard,” said Townsend. “We have the number one and number two ranked teams in our pool so it is very hard to think beyond the match this weekend and the three other pool games.
“But the pressure is all on the two other teams, who are ranked number one and two in the world. We have nothing to lose.” Townsend was speaking immediately after the squad touched down at Nice Airport yesterday evening, ahead of transferring to their hotel in nearby Valbonnes, where they will be based for most of the next month, ahead of moving to Paris for their final pool match against Ireland on 7th October.
“We had an exciting morning,” he said. “We had all the families in to have brunch with their partners and their sons before they headed off. It was a real buzz. It brought home that this tournament is the biggest thing we play in and the biggest event we have as families.
“We are not that far away and some of the players families will be coming out over the next few weeks. After we get to the hotel and the capping ceremony tomorrow [when the players are presented with official World Cup caps as a souvenir], we will feel we are in the tournament.
“It is our third time out here this summer,” he added. “June was warm and we worked hard in that ten day camp, then we were back for a few days before we went up to Saint Etienne for our warm-up match against France three weeks ago.
“Our players are fit, rugby fit. I am sure the heat will be a factor and in a stadium that holds 80,000 it will be even warmer, but it will be a factor for both teams so we will embrace it.”
Townsend has spoken about how he takes responsibility for Scotland’s flat performance against Ireland in their opening game of the 2019 World Cup, and is determined to strike a better balance this week between being emotionally ready but not overburdened by the magnitude of the occasion.
“I think it’s important that we view this as another game, a chance for us to build on what we’ve been doing, not just in the last couple of games but in the last few months before we played these warm-up games,” he said.
“As a coaching group, we’ve got to be as relaxed as possible, making sure our players are relaxed because this will be bigger than anything they’ve played in.
“When you get to such a big stadium with a very different atmosphere than you’d get in the Six Nations, and with other World Cup games kicking off on the nights before, it’s important that we keep our emotions focused on delivering our best rugby.
“We have done our work physicality and fitness wise, now is the time to make sure we are as sharp as we can be at the weekend.
“We’re going to give it everything. We feel with the players we have in this group and what we’ve been building, we can give it a good crack.
“We know the challenges ahead of us but we see it as opportunities, and our aim is to deliver our best game in the four matches we play in our pool, and we’ll see where that takes us.”
