Duncan Weir, the 21-year-old Glasgow Warriors stand-off, will make his first start for Scotland in Saturday’s RBS 6 Nations Championship match against Wales at Murrayfield.
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Weir, whose three previous caps have been won from the bench, replaces his clubmate Ruaridh Jackson in the pivotal position. Weir told www.scottishrugby.org: “It’s a moment I’ll cherish and hopefully I can do the coaches justice for giving me the start.” The other change to the initial line-up from the team that defeated Ireland last month sees the 2009 British and Irish Lion, Euan Murray, return to the tighthead berth with Geoff Cross moving to the bench.
Ryan Wilson, the 23-year-old Glasgow Warriors No 8 who has led his club on three occasions this season and who was captain and man of the match in Scotland A’s victory over England Saxons last month, is introduced to a match-day 23 for the first time.
Wilson is named instead of David Denton who sustained a knee injury when playing for Edinburgh Rugby against Scarlets in the RaboDirect PRO12 at the weekend.
Scotland interim head coach Scott Johnson said: “Selection is tough just now but that’s a good thing as we increase competition for places.
“Duncan did well when he came on against Ireland and he got some decent game time for Glasgow at the weekend. He’s a talent with a really good work ethic and a thirst to improve, which I like a lot.
“Ruaridh remains a key part of our squad but he knows with Tom Heathcote proving a match-winner for Bath and kicking goals from here, there and everywhere, that he needs to up his game too.
“Geoff (Cross) was a standout against Ireland and it’s up to Euan, who fronted up big time against Italy, to raise the bar again.
“Wales will be going for their fifth successive away victory in the championship and that would be a record for them but our focus is on ensuring we win the contact zone, continue to improve and make it three wins on the bounce.”
Scotland team (sponsor RBS) to play Wales in the RBS 6 Nations Championship at Murrayfield on Saturday 9 March (kick-off 2.30pm)
15 Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors) 13 caps, 3 tries, 15 points
14 Sean Maitland (Glasgow Warriors) 3 caps, 1 try, 5 points
13 Sean Lamont (Glasgow Warriors) 74 caps, 9 tries, 45 points
12 Matt Scott (Edinburgh Rugby) 10 caps, 1 try, 5 points
11 Tim Visser (Edinburgh Rugby) 8 caps, 5 tries, 25 points
10 Duncan Weir (Glasgow Warriors) 3 caps, 1 conversion, 2 points
9 Greig Laidlaw (Edinburgh Rugby) vice-captain, 16 caps, 2 tries, 16 conversions and 30 penalties, 132 points
1 Ryan Grant (Glasgow Warriors) vice-captain, 8 caps
2 Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby) 66 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
3 Euan Murray (Worcester Warriors) 51 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
4 Richie Gray (Sale Sharks) 30 caps, 1 try, 5 points
5 Jim Hamilton (Gloucester) 44 caps, 1 try, 5 points
6 Robert Harley (Glasgow Warriors) 3 caps, 1 try, 5 points
7 Kelly Brown (Saracens) captain, 55 caps, 4 tries, 20 points
8 Johnnie Beattie (Montpellier) 19 caps, 3 tries, 15 points
Substitutes
16 Dougie Hall (Glasgow Warriors) 41 caps, 1 try, 5 points
17 Moray Low (Glasgow Warriors) 17 caps
18 Geoff Cross (Edinburgh Rugby) 19 caps, 1 try, 5points
19 Alastair Kellock (Glasgow Warriors) 50 caps, 1 try, 5 points
20 Ryan Wilson (Glasgow Warriors) uncapped
21 Henry Pyrgos (Glasgow Warriors) 5 caps, 1 try, 5 points
22 Ruaridh Jackson (Glasgow Warriors) 18 caps, 2 conversions, 2 penalties, 2 drop-goals, 16 points
23 Max Evans (Castres) 34 caps, 3 tries, 15 points
Unavailable through injury: Chris Cusiter and Chris Fusaro (both Glasgow Warriors), David Denton, Grant Gilchrist and Ross Rennie (all Edinburgh Rugby).
Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa). Assistant referees: Glen Jackson (New Zealand) and Lourens Van Der Merwe (South Africa). TMO: Giulio De Santis (Italy).
Weir’s reaction on selection to the starting team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=akURNTsYxeQ
Congratulations to Duncan Weir on his selection for first start for Scotland, he is known as a reliable kicking flyhalf both out of hand and for goal, but from what I’ve seen of him this season he has also added, from what I can remember of his previous play, a nice agressive running approach to his game as well and although I think Jackson may still be a better ‘distributor’ of the ball I think Weir has improved on this side of his game as well this year.
Congratulations as well to Ryan Wilson who gets his first call up to match day squad, think he is a real ‘yster’ of a player who while maybe not so much a super sub game breaker like Richie Vernon could possibly be he is still a strong hard working good ball carrying number eight.
A pity though for David Denton to loose out through injury, didn’t even realize he got injured playing for Edinburgh on Friday, just shows what a committed player Denton is as I thought he had a super game on Friday at number 8 apart from being penalized, and was all over the park carrying the ball up quite a bit, putting in tackles and also some classic no 8 covering at the back with a good anticipation for where the ball was going to be he was in position to field high kicks from the attacking Scarlets and helped out his backs in this regard, hope Denton is back soon.
@ Bullscot:
Any relation to Doddy?
What chance the Sweaties of taking this one? If they do this will surely be their best 6N for many a year?
Can’t honestly see anyone stopping an English Grand Slam now though. Your opinion?
3 @ Scrumdown:
Hello Scrumdown no relation to Doddie as far as I’m aware, its the kind of thing you would expect commentators to mention quite often and I’ve never heard anyone mention connection between Duncan and Doddie, there is also some difference in stature with Duncan being around 1.76m tall…
I think there is a quiet confidence about this one, although feel we would have to have way more possession than we did against Ireland in last game as rate that Welsh backline more dangerous than the Irish one that faced us, so we don’t want them to be able to run at us with loads of posession. Set pieces should see Scotland at least have parity with Wales provided Ross Ford ups his game at lineout time and finds his jumpers, scrums may even see Scotland a wee bit stronger but am really no expert on that. The only concern for me would be whether we has loose forwards to counter the ball scavanging of Welsh loosies, see they have brought Warburton back to start and also have Justin Tipuric, who many rate a better ball winner than Warburton, on the bench. The big difference for me this week is that Duncan Weir has a stronger kicking game than Ruaridh Jackson so Laidlaw will probably not feel the pressure to kick from the base on the scrum as much as he did against Ireland. By Laidlaw doing a lot of the kicking from the base of scrum, ruck etc I feel we gifted Ireland a lot of possesion as the very nature of kicking from that spot of far less space and body position means for me you are more inclined to launch up and unders rather than kick deep for lineouts or be able to do neat chip kicks over tight defence or even try the odd grubber, these kicks are executed far better from the position a little further back that the flyhalf has as long as scrumhalf has a good strong pass. As good as Laidlaw has been I feel the one area that he maybe lacks is on the strength of his pass and so the flyhalf maybe has the little bit of time less on the ball that he would like but hopefully Laidlaw proves me wrong on this. You can’t fault Laidlaw’s kicking at poles though he must be close to Halfpenny as top kicker so far this 6 nations, can’t recall him missing much.
Finally regarding England I think you are right they should be far too good for Italy this weekend and would bargain on them sealing the Grand Slam against Wales. Even if England don’t manage to beat Wales they should still win the championship as if Wales beat Scotland and England or Scotland has a dream two weeks beating Wales and France think England should still be comfortable winners on point difference.
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