Scotland's World Cup warm-up games against Italy and Georgia are no doubt valuable preparation in all sorts of ways, but the double-header against France this weekend and next is the real meat in the four-fixture sandwich.
The aim of starting the pre-season programme with a match against the Italians was to have a demanding but not impossible challenge first up: one that offered a good chance of yielding a morale-boosting victory despite some inevitable rustiness. That much transpired at Murrayfield on Saturday, as two tries from Darcy Graham and a late third by Josh Bayliss saw the home side ease to a 25-13 victory.
The Georgia match on Saturday 26 August - 15 days before the opening World Cup pool game against South Africa - will be a massive physical test, especially up front. But the French games, at home this Saturday and then in St Etienne a week later, will surely give the best indication of where Scotland are as a team, and precisely how prepared they are for the competition itself.
Most if not all of Gregor Townsend’s first-choice players will be named on Wednesday in the squad of 23 for the visit of France. Pierre Schoeman, Zander Fagerson, Jamie Ritchie, Hamish Watson, Ben White, Finn Russell, Sione Tuipulotu and Duhan van der Merwe were just some of the big names who sat out the Italian match, and the head coach has confirmed that he wants his senior players to have at least two outings from the four warm-up matches.
“We know we start with a very tough game, and South Africa have been playing for the last few weeks - they played on Saturday,” Townsend said (the Springboks beat Argentina 22-21 in the Rugby Championship). “So they don’t finish at the end of the season and have a break without Test matches.
“The ability for us to have four Test matches now is very helpful. But we’re going to have to build cohesion, match fitness, match hardiness with as close a group as possible [to the one] we believe will be played against South Africa. So players will play two, maybe three games that are likely to play against South Africa.”
When it comes to performing well against the French, Townsend believes that a solid start will be vital - something that did not happen in this year’s Six Nations, when the visitors in the Stade de France were already behind by the time of Grant Gilchrist’s early sending-off.
“Even before the red card we obviously conceded a try. The red card came after the kick-off after the try.
“They just started with a bit more pace and power in the way they attacked. After that I felt we did match them for pace, power. We started to find holes in their defence.
“I think we can take a lot of confidence from how we played against them that day, and over the last two or three years. We’ve gone well against France. We know how big a challenge it is if you let them get on the front foot or if you let their defence turn over the ball. They’re probably an even better jackaling team than Italy.
“So Saturday was a really good preparation for what we’re expecting at the breakdown. And we usually are better at the breakdown, so that’s one area we’ll work on this week.”
Townsend confirmed last week that he plans to select his final squad of 33 after the first France match, although the official announcement is not expected until after the return game. With just eight players to be cut from the current training group of 41, he surely knows the identity of the vast majority of the players he will take to the World Cup.
Even so, the win over Italy may well have raised one or two fresh questions. Ben Healy’s man-of-the-match display, for example, has surely elevated him in the coach’s eyes while casting doubt over the status of Adam Hastings.
And Stuart McInally, who will retire after the World Cup at the age of 33, put in a dynamic performance off the bench to enhance his chances. George Turner started the match and seems sure to be selected for France, as does Ewan Ashman, so the fight for the third berth looks like being between McInally and his Edinburgh team-mate Dave Cherry.
“He was really good,” Townsend said of McInally, who was Scotland captain four years ago at the Japan World Cup. “I remember when Stuart said ‘This is when I’m retiring’ it was in my mind ‘Will that dim the motivation?’ But it’s been the opposite. He’s said he’s in the best shape of his life physically, and he’s going to do all he can to get to the World Cup.”
