Ben White remains on course to return from injury a week on Saturday as a member of what Gregor Townsend has insisted will be a strong Scotland side to take on Georgia.
The 25-year-old, who has established himself as the squad’s first-choice scrum-half, injured an ankle in the home game against France and initially there were fears that he would not recover in time for the Rugby World Cup. However, subsequent assessments proved more positive, and after naming White in his squad of 33 yesterday Townsend revealed that a meeting at the start of this week had continued the positive prognosis.
“Ben’s good,” the head coach said. “He had a meeting with the specialist on Monday and that was positive.
“He ran on Tuesday, which was the first time he’d run in 10 days, so we’ll see over the next two or three days if he’ll be available for next week’s game - that’s the target. It would be nice to have him available for next week but if he doesn’t come right for that, we know he’ll be available for [the opening World Cup match against] South Africa.”
The risk of injury in what is sure to be a physically demanding Test has led some supporters to hope that Townsend will rest some of his most important players next weekend in order to ensure that they are fit to face the Springboks on 10 October. However, as he also suggested after last Saturday’s narrow defeat by France in St Etienne, the coach remains minded to field something not too far removed from his best available line-up.
“We'll be going strong," he continued. "The more our strongest group of players get to play together, the better we'll be for that South Africa game. The players want that too: everybody wants to play that Georgia game.
“We understand there will be a group of players who haven't played much rugby going into the World Cup, but our goal will be to get that group that is most likely to be involved against South Africa to get those connections in a Test-match environment. The players have been magnificent in training, but training doesn't replicate what you're going to get in a game. The Georgia game will be very important for us in how we continue to improve and progress before we play South Africa.
“We’ll go as strong as we believe we can. That will be adjusted on where players are in training, whether they have any niggles, any combinations we want to see more of, what we want to see from the bench. There were a couple of guys who have small issues from [last Saturday’s] game, but we believe everyone is available for selection just now.
“If we don’t put a group out that might be similar to the group that plays South Africa, it’s going to be a month where they’ve not played a game. I don’t think that’s the best preparation for a Test match.”
Duhan van der Merwe was one player who picked up a light injury in St Etienne - in his case an ankle injury which led to his being substituted - but he has been given the all-clear. “Duhan is OK. We expect him to train fully later today. He jarred it before, then when he crossed the line [to score] he jarred it again, so it was more precautionary - but he’s recovered well.”
While the Georgia game will be the last action most of the squad see before facing South Africa, those who miss out could have one more chance to work on their match fitness. “We may have one more live training session or game before we leave for France - we’ll decide that after we see how things go against Georgia,” Townsend added.
