Scotland V Russia...

Scotland v Russia (Shizuoka), ... Welcome to Stalingrad...or Bannockburn.

Well gentlemen, we seem to be spending a lot of time fretting about whether we shall need to pick up four points or five in our final group game while blithely assuming that the five are already in the bag from this fixture.

Russia didn't look too shabby in the opening match against Japan: losing 30-10 but if the referee had spotted a blatant body check on the Russian 9 the hosts could have been reduced to 14 and things might have been "interesting".

In their second match they looked at least as good as Fiji for a large part of the game before tiring badly in the latter part of the game; but a three day turn around will do that to a team.
Again, the Russian can rightly feel aggrieved that the officials somehow contrived not to show any red cards. The Fijians should have been reduced to 13 men after two "tackles" which would be frowned upon in even the rowdiest Glasgow kebab shops.

Three day turnaround, Stevie Wonder refereeing, playing the hosts in the opening game.... rumour has it the team song is to be changed to the blues classic "If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all".

Russia play Ireland tomorrow and then Scotland six days later. The Irish have made eleven changes from the defeat to Japan and will be hoping for five points before their final match against Samoa.

If Russia lose to Ireland they will have to mount the biggest comeback since Lazarus, or Scotland's second half at Twickenham, after three defeats if they hope to have any chance of winning.

So....an easy five points for Scotland?

I think the biggest obstacle for Scotland is the four day turnaround for the decider against Japan. Barring Ireland losing one of their remaining matches the loser of Japan v Scotland is going home. So Toonie will have to rest several first choice players and play a number who haven't featured yet.

Front Row

Taking only five props could come back to haunt Toonie here. Dell went off early against Samoa and Shrek played an hour in a sauna, he probably lost Bru's body weight in sweat. If Dell is not fit then Berghan needs to start at LH and Shrek is on the bench. This means that Ragnar and Nel will share TH duties. Not ideal in terms of resting our starting props before the big game.

Second Row

Toolis hasn't been in a match day 23 yet. Will he be ready to start? Presumably he'll partner Cummings with JG benching.

Back Row

Ideally we would rest Mbawsa-Replicant-Bradbury but that only leaves two to play ; Batman and Barcs. So do we have Turner hooking and Brown at 7? The nightmare scenario would see both of them injured. Just in passing...if that happened could we fly a hooker out in time for the next game? The jet lag would surely prevent him from playing?

Half backs

Frodo and Dancer must sit this one out. So Henners and Haircut to start? Wee George to bench.

Centres

Sam Johnson will be rested. Furra Linee at 12. Taylor at 13. He needs to play as he's still not up to full match fitness. Harris to bench BUT if Furra replaces haircut at 10 and Harris comes on then Taylor must play the full 80. Is he fit enough to be available against Japan four days later?

Back Three

Maitland and Hogg must be rested. So Blarehorn, Seymour and Graham. one of whom must then start against Japan.

So
1. Dell               Shrek
2. Turner           Rambo
3. Berghan        Ragnar
4. Toolis            JG
5. Cummings
6. Batman
7. Brown
8. Barcs            The slightly piqued B's Bradbury to bench

9. Henners        Wee George
10.Haircut        
11. Graham      Maitland
12. Furra Linee
13. Taylor         Harris
14, Seymour
15. King Blarehorn

It's a team that have never played together, with a few who haven't played in weeks. What could go wrong?

Not a done deal but would be very disappointed if we didn't squeeze 5 points out of this game. This is our best chance to rack up a points difference if it comes down to that when the pool finishes. I agree mostly with your line up bar henners. This one i think Horne should show that he's trustworthy. I'd maybe have Dancer or Frodo on the bench in case we lose our heads out there and start leaking tries. Considering they will have likely been spanked by a p*ssed off ireland we should be looking for at least 40 points in this game, maybe even more.

Didn't realise we had Fiji in our group!

I pretty much agree with that team but I'd start Horne - he's definitely fit enough to back up a bench spot against Japan, and it's not like he's played much so far.

With only 2 LHs I wonder if we'll see Berghan at LH and Fagerson at TH given both of them will have the least minutes so far. Either Berghan or Fagerson to play the full 80 depending on who needs resting for Japan.

Russia will be awkward and I can see us struggling to shake them off until around the 60 minute mark then we run away with it at the end.

Thanks for listing those player pseudonyms, jimbo. Helps me understand who you guys are talking about all the time. I've actually got an old word document saved on my computer... c. 2013-14? which I had a look at the other day and posted below. I had a good laugh.  

Does this bring back memories? I think Rugby Dreamer (the lovely Welsh girl who came here during the Lions Tour) did it for me. Or was it you?

Forwards:

Allan Dell - Someone like you/Adelle
Grant Gilchrist - GG/Gilco
Gary Graham - Graham (macro) son of George
Jonny Gray - Ickle Jonny/Heir apparent to AWJ's lions spot
John Hardie - Crazy Horse
Murray McCallum - Not Cocker's man
Stuart McInally - Rambo
Willem Nel - WP
Jamie Ritchie - Wee Ritchie (not Ritchie Gray)
Josh Strauss - Bluto
Tim Swinson - Tiny Tim
Ben Toolis - Surfer Dude
Hamish Watson - The Mish or He who is nearly home
Ryan Wilson - Batman

Backs:

Chris Dean - Christine
Darcy Graham - Graham (Micro) son of Hawick
Sam Johnson - Smiling Sam
Chris Harris - Useless Falcon
Adam Hastings - Haircut
Stuart Hogg - Hoggy, 2x player of the year, first son of Hawick
George Horne - Wee Horne the faster/better
Pete Horne - Horne the lesser/shoiter
Rory Hughes - Rozza
Huw Jones - Shug
Lee Jones - The Selkirk Pixie
Blair Kinghorn - Sir Blairhorn
Greig Laidlaw - Froddo the Ponderous
Sean Maitland - No Maits
Stafford McDowall - Mr World Class
Ali Price - Aldi Price/Tanman
Henry Pyrgos - Henners Piecrust
Finn Russell - Dancer
Tommy Seymour - Tennessee Tam
Duncan Weir - Meatball / Break glass in case of emergency

Nicknames are important, especially with some of the characters we have in the current squad haha

Well Russia are certainly not going to lie down for us, they are giving Ireland (who have been making life very hard for themselves to be fair) a torrid afternoon.

If they back that up again, then it is not going to be a cake walk.

You do wonder what they will have left in the tank though.

TBH as long as we get the BP, don't get any injuries and the Japan players play as little as possible I can deal with a dodgy performance, as much as it would be nice to put 60 points on them.

No one will remember the Russia game if we somehow manage to qualify from the group!

Pal Joey wrote:Thanks for listing those player pseudonyms, jimbo. Helps me understand who you guys are talking about all the time. I've actually got an old word document saved on my computer... c. 2013-14? which I had a look at the other day and posted below. I had a good laugh.  

Does this bring back memories? I think Rugby Dreamer (the lovely Welsh girl who came here during the Lions Tour) did it for me. Or was it you?

Forwards:

Allan Dell - Someone like you/Adelle
Grant Gilchrist - GG/Gilco
Gary Graham - Graham (macro) son of George
Jonny Gray - Ickle Jonny/Heir apparent to AWJ's lions spot
John Hardie - Crazy Horse
Murray McCallum - Not Cocker's man
Stuart McInally - Rambo
Willem Nel - WP
Jamie Ritchie - Wee Ritchie (not Ritchie Gray) - Now know as Mbawsa
Josh Strauss - Bluto
Tim Swinson - Tiny Tim
Ben Toolis - Surfer Dude
Hamish Watson - The Mish or He who is nearly home
Ryan Wilson - Batman

Backs:

Chris Dean - Christine
Darcy Graham - Graham (Micro) son of Hawick
Sam Johnson - Smiling Sam
Chris Harris - Useless Falcon - Now known as The hardest working centre in world rugby
Adam Hastings - Haircut
Stuart Hogg - Hoggy, 2x player of the year, first son of Hawick
George Horne - Wee Horne the faster/better
Pete Horne - Horne the lesser/shoiter
Rory Hughes - Rozza
Huw Jones - Shug
Lee Jones - The Selkirk Pixie
Blair Kinghorn - Sir Blairhorn
Greig Laidlaw - Froddo the Ponderous
Sean Maitland - No Maits
Stafford McDowall - Mr World Class
Ali Price - Aldi Price/Tanman
Henry Pyrgos - Henners Piecrust
Finn Russell - Dancer
Tommy Seymour - Tennessee Tam
Duncan Weir - Meatball / Break glass in case of emergency

Ahhh, I remember this list. We all had input but I do recall typing this out.

I've provided some updates for you as some have changed, plus in Jimbos post, the nicknames in italic are subs and not actually the names of the players in the starting line up.

Players also needing added are:

Simon Berghan - Bergs or "better than Ragnar" (see above)
Blade Thomson - Blade runner
George Turner - Insomniac
Gordie Ried - Shrek
Maguns Bradbury - Maggie or The Ironlady or "Scotland's Billy V"
Scott Cummings - Futureboy (just give him that one now to be honest though so it may not stick)
Duncan Talyor - Spacey (as in space cadet)

I reckon Scotland will line up very much as others have suggested. Assuming the 23 against Japan is going to be much the same as that against Samoa (which I think is a reasonable assumption), you ideally don't want anyone starting both games. Obviously we'll need to have one back three player starting both (unless Toonie pulls a complete Toonie-Tombola-special and starts one of Pyrgios or Fagerson there). This'll probably be Graham.

Another question mark is over the back row. Ideally you don't want anyone starting both against Russia and Japan, and given what we've already seen in the tournament I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Brown start at openside. Elsewhere in the pack I reckon we'll see Berghan play a decent portion of the game at LH, maybe even start there. Finally, at scrum half I think we might see Horne starting rather than Pyrgios, with Toonie happy to back Horne's ability to recover in time for Japan. So something like:

Reid
Turner
Berghan
Toolis
Cummings
Barclay (capt.)
Brown
Wilson
Horne
Hastings
Graham
Horne
Taylor
Seymour
Kinghorn

Dell
McInally
Fagerson
Gray/Gilchrist
Ritchie/Bradbury
Pyrgios
Harris
Maitland

Fagerson to replace Reid early in the second half with Berghan switching to LH. Other likely changes would be Gray/Gilchrist for Cummings, Ritchie/Bradbury for Brown, Pyrgios for G. Horne, Harris for Taylor/Hastings (the latter involving a reshuffle) and maybe Maitland for Graham. McInally and Dell to essentially sit this one out if at all possible.

We really need to rest as many players as possible for this one with the turn around.

Horne will be able to play a good 60 mins though as hes barely played plus he is apparently freakishly fit.

I'd probably rest JG entirely as hes looked absolutely knackered in each game after just 5 mins. There is an arugement though that he starts and if he doesnt hack the pace for 50 mins he doesnt get to start against Japan.

Gordie Reid lokos knackered too but I think thats jsut becuase he is Gordie Reid. He needs to start to fully rest Dell (who may not even be fit to play).

Folk also need to remember that a week after we play japan, if we get out the group, we have the QF to play. We're not good enough/have enough depth to have one eye on the QF though do we? Surely we need to go all out against Japan!

Not picking our strongest side against Japan would be insane and would lead to us definitely going home. We’re up against it enough as it is!

It's a 6 day turnaround between Japan and our potential Quarter final. If we had a six day turnaround between two Six Nations games there'd be no talk of resting players whatsoever. I do think we still have the capability to beat Japan with our second team but it's seems utterly ridiculous to suggest playing the second stringers in the do or die fixture.

We need to field our seconds against the Russians to have a hope against the Japanese. It highlights the ridiculous nature of the 31 man squad. Why minimise the number of players for a tournament with smaller turnarounds?

I think that Russia are the sort of team that Horne and Hastings would take apart with their unorthodox play.
They coped with Ireland relatively well because Ireland play very conventional rugby extremely well. They don't offload and they're heavily structured. Russia defended well but it seems that Ireland have suffered a late onset of their usual World Cup form. I don't think an Irish bonus point against Samoa is a given now. Which is not necessarily good news for us. If all three teams are on equal points it comes to points difference now. Given our shocking result against Ireland we're up against it on that front. We're already 42 points behind them and 17 behind Japan.

I forgot that if Ireland fail to get a BP over Samoa and if we beat Japan (after beating Russia) that the head to heads become redundant because they beat us, then they beat them then we beat them. Cancels the whole thing out.

Means it goes to points for and against so we need to beat Russia by 10 points given that we’d need to beat Japan by more than 7 to stop them getting a LBP

Bonkers situation that we may want Ireland to get a BP over Samoa

Or Samoa to cause the biggest upset of the WC apart from uruguay

BP system is not perfect and I feel as though many teams forget it exists! Scotland for example, against Ireland Scotland seemed to forget there was a point on offer if they could close the gap on the scoreline. That lost LBP against Ireland would have been very useful. It should be the prerogative of the coaching staff to plan ahead for a BP in a tournament format. Ie, when the side goes behind badly, they should be fighting for that BP.

We were trying plenty bsando we just kept messing it up!

Any word on Dell's head knock?

4 day turnaround is no joke, which other teams have a 4 day turnaround at this RWC?

Don't think you can risk Gray, Ritchie, Laidlaw, Russell or Hogg being in the 23.  If someone goes down in first minute then they've got to play two matches in 5 days and that's a big problem.

1 - Reid *
2 - Turner
3 - Fagerson
4 - Cummings *
5 - Toolis
6 - Wilson
7 - Barclay (c)
8 - Bradbury *

16 - Brown,  17 - Berghan,  18 - Nell,  19 - Gilchrist, 20 - Thomson

9 - Horne *
10 - Hastings
11 - Maitland *
12 - Horne
13 - Taylor *
14 - Seymour
15 - Kinghorn

21 - Pyrgos,  22 - Harris, 23 - Graham

* off in 3rd quarter

reallybored wrote:4 day turnaround is no joke, which other teams have a 4 day turnaround at this RWC?

From skimming the fixture list:
Argentina
England
Fiji
France
Italy
New Zealand
South Africa
Uruguay 
Wales

And most of the rest have at least one 5 day turnaround.

Most teams have had 4 day turnarounds, it's just ours is before the crucial final group game. Compare that to NZ and England who had it against the weakest teams in their groups, which is no great hardship.

As Biggee said a while ago we definitely benefited from Japan having it last world cup so can't overly complain!

Scotland team to play Russia at the Shizuoka Stadium Ecopa in Rugby World Cup 2019
Wednesday 9 October (kick-off 8.15am BST, 4.15pm local time) – live on ITV/STV

15. Blair Kinghorn (Edinburgh) – 15 caps

14. Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors) – 53 caps
13. Duncan Taylor (Saracens) – 25 caps
12. Pete Horne VICE CAPTAIN (Glasgow Warriors) – 43 caps
11. Darcy Graham (Edinburgh) – 9 caps

10. Adam Hastings (Glasgow Warriors) – 15 caps
9. George Horne (Glasgow Warriors) – 8 caps

1. Gordon Reid (Ayrshire Bulls) – 39 caps
2. George Turner (Glasgow Warriors) – 8 caps
3. Zander Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors) – 23 caps
4. Scott Cummings (Glasgow Warriors) – 6 caps
5. Ben Toolis (Edinburgh) – 21 caps
6. John Barclay CAPTAIN (Edinburgh) – 75 caps
7. Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors) – 44 caps
8. Ryan Wilson VICE CAPTAIN (Glasgow Warriors) – 47 caps

Substitutes:
16. Stuart McInally (Edinburgh) – 31 caps
17. Simon Berghan (Edinburgh) – 23 caps
18. Willem Nel (Edinburgh) – 33 caps
19. Grant Gilchrist (Edinburgh) – 38 caps
20. Magnus Bradbury (Edinburgh) – 9 caps
21. Jamie Ritchie (Edinburgh) – 13 caps
22. Henry Pyrgos (Edinburgh) – 27 caps
23. Chris Harris (Gloucester) – 12 caps

Team is out, very much as predicted.

Brown plays openside and Zander starts at TH, Berghan covers LH from the bench. Dell you woulx imagine still recoveting from his HI.

A good enough team to put Russia away quite comfortanly you should imagine.

It probably gives a few clues as to who will play in the Japan game as well.

Pretty much the team everyone expected, with the main point being only 2 back subs.

I'm hoping Nel, McInally, Bradbury and Ritchie don't need to play very much!

They may not play at all if thete are no injuries!

Ideally those primed for the Japan bench don't play 80 minutes so I imagine there will be subs.

Just hopefully after 60 minutes, not 6!

Russia have made 9 changes for this one. No idea if that's a stronger or weaker team than what Ireland faced!

Strong looking team, should have enough to see off Russia.

I’m hopeful that the game is won fairly early doors (tempting fate here) so we can take Horne the younger off and I guess Reid.

Possibly Darcy and Cummings too as I suspect Darcy will be playing against Japan, and Cummings will be on the bench.

It's a decent team, however there is very little in the way of a carrying threat anywhere in the pack - outside of Cummings and Zander. Hopefully it won't matter in the end, but I think that pack are going to have to work pretty hard to break them down.

The caps totals always surprise me. How does Nel only have 6 more caps than Pyrgos? How does Pyrgos have 27 caps??

RDW wrote:The caps totals always surprise me. How does Nel only have 6 more caps than Pyrgos? How does Pyrgos have 27 caps??

I'm assuming because there was a spell where our 9 options were Laidlaw and Pyrgos. Wee Horne wasn't around, Ali Price wasn't getting a look in, SHC was SHC. Therefore Pyrgos was the bench option and was part of a league winning Glasgow team.

Nel on the other hand only qualified to play for Scotland in the last few years and spent a fair bit of that time with a serious neck injury.

Yeah it's pretty amazing Nel even managed to come back and play again really.

Not a bad team if they get the 5 points on offer. I'm a bit worried though, I don't rate Turner very much and Brown at 7 is not ideal. i know he can play there but why can't we just play Ritchie or Thomson? Thomson could do with more game time anyway he's only played one full match for Scotland.

Too many of these players need to have a good game and Russia are not going to be push overs. I am a bit worried we'll have egg on our faces again.

The backline looks good though and hopefully that will get Scotland over the line. Defensively I think we'll leak a few scores for sure. No chance of us nilling Russia like Samoa with this side.

bsando wrote:Yeah it's pretty amazing Nel even managed to come back and play again really.

Not a bad team if they get the 5 points on offer. I'm a bit worried though, I don't rate Turner very much and Brown at 7 is not ideal. i know he can play there but why can't we just play Ritchie or Thomson? Thomson could do with more game time anyway he's only played one full match for Scotland.

Too many of these players need to have a good game and Russia are not going to be push overs. I am a bit worried we'll have egg on our faces again.

The backline looks good though and hopefully that will get Scotland over the line. Defensively I think we'll leak a few scores for sure. No chance of us nilling Russia like Samoa with this side.

Because they'll have to do it all again in 4 days which is a huge ask! Particularly given the pace Japan play at.

Nah, Ritchie and Blade need not so much a rest, but not to be exhausted before going to the Japan game.

Toonie has 100% made the right decisions here. Brown may not be familiar at 7 but he is a pro rugby playing going up against an amateur. Turner is actually quite a decent hooker and he is particularly great around the park. His darts are a bit off but I'd not expect the Russian lineout to really bother ours.

When all is said and done, when all the dust has settled, you'll be able to smell what the rock is cookin, but more importantly, if this team can’t get 5 points off Russia then Scotland as a squad do not deserve to get out the pool anyway!

RDW wrote:The caps totals always surprise me. How does Nel only have 6 more caps than Pyrgos? How does Pyrgos have 27 caps??

He's now the 3rd best scrum half in the Edinburgh squad, so I don't see him harvesting too many more.

Toonie has picked the side he pretty much had to, given the short turnaround. Shaky looking but mobile pack. The key for us is the Horne/Hastings axis at 9/10. If we can get that firing we ought to win with plenty to spare.

Think Pyrgos harvests a few caps on the summer tour every year when no ones really looking.

Pyrgos has captained Scotland in the past I'm sure too.

FES is right though that with Groom and Shiel's performances he should be 3rd choice at Edinburgh just now. There's no point starting Groom (who is basically a better version of Pyrgos) and replacing him with a not as good equivalent.

He's been made VC though so looks like Cockers might not agree!

Pyrgos simply cannot come back from international duty (goodness know why he is even on international duty) and walk back into the starting 9 spot.

If we are winning games without him and he returns and we start losing games again, then fingers will need to be pointed!

#JimboForMod

I am fsirly sure that GL will retire from international rugby post WC.

Going to be interesting to see who steps up to the Scotland squad in his place. It could be Sheil, in which case HP would be getting game time at Edinburgh in his place.

Vellacott would be my preferred choice, if he is interested. Probably a few years to soon for Dobie, who may well be the coming man

Townsend's take on the ridiculous squint feed call in the Japan game.

I bet that's not what he really wanted to say!

Japan benefited from "an incredible call" to earn a bonus point in their World Cup victory over Samoa, says Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend.

The host nation crashed over for a stoppage-time try in a 38-19 win after Samoa were punished for a squint scrum feed on their own five-metre line.

Japan meet the Scots in the hosts' final pool match on Wednesday.

"I've never seen a crooked feed [penalised], certainly at the World Cup or in the Six Nations," said Townsend.

"I think it's an incredible call to be honest. It's something that has not been refereed and there's been an agreement that there is more latitude for scrum-halves putting the ball in because you are the team that's won the scrum.

"To see it in a World Cup really surprised me. To see it as we went into injury time for a game-changing decision was an even bigger surprise."

Did not hold back there but what he said is 100% true!

I wonder if you can make a reffing complaint about a game that you're not involved in...

I'm sure behind closed doors the SRU will be raising questions with World Rugby one way or an other.

I do not believe for one minute the ref did it to get Japan through but it really doesn't look good! It was so out of the blue.

Not sure that comment from Gregor was strictly necessary, its way too far down the 'Cheika school of whinging' path for my liking

I see what you're saying Llama but I think he took it far enough to not go full Cheika. He didn't make the link between the decision and making our life much more difficult in the pool, although of course it is implied in the context and the fact he was asked at all.

He could of course have said "we were a bit surprised but it but it's something that was out of our hands. We are still in control of our own destiny and it clarifies what we need to do against Japan. But first we've got a very important game against Russia...."

RDW wrote:I wonder if you can make a reffing complaint about a game that you're not involved in...

I'm sure behind closed doors the SRU will be raising questions with World Rugby one way or an other.

I do not believe for one minute the ref did it to get Japan through but it really doesn't look good! It was so out of the blue.

I dont think you can.

One thing is for sure though, Samoa's choice to try and keep playing for goodness knows what reason, 2m from their own line, must surely have the SRU thinking if they want to invite Samoa over to HQ for any AIs in the near future!

Gerogia have been very lovely to work with in the warm ups and I'd be giving them a nod before Samoa these days.

bloody mob!

Still say we'll win the game by 40 odd to 30 odd and Japan end up going through on BPs

So, we all know that at times our national coach can be slightly "Sheldon Cooperish" in the attention to detail when preparing his teams. I thought we should help him out with Wednesday's opponents.

Their 7 is far and away their best player. But as Martin Johnson said when asked about facing Ritchie McCaw,

"Put a big ugly second row to lie on him. He can't be the best seven in the world if he's lying at the bottom of a ruck."

We won't need a massively complicated gameplan; their centres have a tackle success rate of 56% so far in the tournament. Furra Linee and Spacey should make hay while they can. Their full back likes to run it back so King Blarehorn should feel free to run everything back.

I'm pretty certain our starting 15 have never played together, so keep it simple and just run everything through them.
If we don't pick up five points from this we should concede the last match and get the next flight home. Seppuku, rugby style.

RDW wrote:

bsando wrote:Yeah it's pretty amazing Nel even managed to come back and play again really.

Not a bad team if they get the 5 points on offer. I'm a bit worried though, I don't rate Turner very much and Brown at 7 is not ideal. i know he can play there but why can't we just play Ritchie or Thomson? Thomson could do with more game time anyway he's only played one full match for Scotland.

Too many of these players need to have a good game and Russia are not going to be push overs. I am a bit worried we'll have egg on our faces again.

The backline looks good though and hopefully that will get Scotland over the line. Defensively I think we'll leak a few scores for sure. No chance of us nilling Russia like Samoa with this side.

Because they'll have to do it all again in 4 days which is a huge ask! Particularly given the pace Japan play at.

It would be brilliant to have the players fresh for what will be a massive game on Saturday vs Japan. However, if one or two players are a bit sore and we take the 5 points against Russia I think that's preferable to a Fiji 2017/ USA 2018 scenario, where our B team fails to show up and deliver. We all know Scotland don't just have to win, but win with a BP. Townsend is clearly confident in the abilities of his squad to not only make 14 changes. To leave Russell and Laidlaw out completely, have no FH cover on the bench, a hooker playing at 7 and 5 players starting who haven't played a minute at the RWC yet is surely a little risky. If it all goes to plan it'll be wonderful but I'm really sceptical it will. Russia have punched above their weight in this tournament and they only have Scotland left to play. I think they'll be chuffed to bits if they can prevent us getting that BP win.

Jim. Thrilled you started a thread there feller.

We will beat the Ruskies. Chill.

They're not even allowed to systematically guzzle steroids any more.

George, they can guzzle all the steroids they want as long as Shrek has his katsu curry chicken and chips.

I'm beginning to suspect that Gordy's the misbegotten love child of Rachel Koo and Desperate Dan.

The worry over a repeat of the Fiji and USA debacles is legitimate. It's worth saying however that some of the players who played against the USA are probably fifth and sixth choice now. Lewis Carmichael, Hamilton, Swinson and Grigg were really nowhere near selection this summer. Likewise from the bench McCallum, Bennett and Fife didn't really feature in discussions about the wider training squad. Then there's the players who weren't picked for the final squad for the world cup; the likes of Bhatti and Matt Fagerson. It was also a very poor performance backed up by a very good one against Argentina. A lot of the young players from that day have had another year of rugby under their belt. Kinghorn, Horne, Hastings have all played in the Six Nations and the latter stages of the Champions Cup. There is also the reality that expecting the same 15 boys to play on wednesday and then do the same on Sunday is a recipe for disaster.  Russia are not as good as Fiji or even the USA (although we did score four tries against the USA). So let's not kid ourselves our Second choice should and will beat Russia with a bonus point, if they don't they have under-performed. I would take 20-19 if it meant four tries and a pop at the Japanese on Sunday.

Funnily enough I discovered last weekend one of my ancestors (from Leith apparently) was buried on Samoa in the early twentieth century. His grave was destroyed by the Japanese during the second world war. Seemed strangely appropriate after the last 10 minutes of the Samoa-Japan game.

I have to say, the one thing that is a great comic relief this wc is shrek's ayrshire wisdom.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/49961164

I saw Kinghorn passing the ball. I’m off to buy a lottery ticket