Hadden rings the changes
Scotland head coach Frank Hadden has made sweeping changes to his team for Sunday’s Murrayfield clash with New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup – but denies he has picked a reserve team.
He retains just two of the players who started Tuesday’s 42-0 win over Romania.
Chris Paterson starts at stand-off after lining up on the wing in midweek, and Simon Webster slots in on the wing having been deployed at outside centre against Romania.
Prop Alasdair Dickinson and flanker John Barclay win their first caps as Hadden opts out of selecting his first-choice team against the World Cup favourites, apparently with one eye on the all-important Italy clash in Pool C on September 29.
Gloucester front-rower Dickinson was not in Scotland’s original 30-man squad but was called up to replace Allan Jacobsen when the Edinburgh man was forced out of the tournament through injury.
Scott Murray, Scotland’s most-capped player, captains the side and Chris Cusiter comes in for Mike Blair at scrum-half.
Andrew Henderson, scorer of a hat-trick of tries in the warm-up victory over Ireland last month, comes back into the side after recovering from a leg injury.
Despite the many changes, Hadden told www.scottishrugby.org: “I utterly reject the notion that this is a second-string, weakened or reserve Scotland team.
“It contains the best place-kicker in world rugby (Paterson), two British Lions, one of whom is Scotland’s most-capped player, two of our most-respected and exciting backs; arguably the player who made the biggest impact in the 2006 autumn Tests and other players who have beaten South Africa, France, England Ireland and Wales in the international arena, combined with some fresh young talent.
“We have a squad of 30 highly professional, dedicated quality players and we compete in this tournament as a squad. Our mission has always been to qualify from the group stages and press on from there.
“The schedule we are being asked to fulfil by RWC involves us playing three games in 11 days.
“International rugby is a huge physical challenge and our aspirations are to progress as far as we can in this tournament and that has to be the over-riding priority in our selection for the games against New Zealand and Italy.
“We believe to get the best outcome for Scotland over the next two games that it’s absolutely vital we play the freshest possible squad this weekend and the freshest possible squad against Italy.
“Had the Portugal and Romania games also fallen like Romania and New Zealand just five days apart we would have done exactly the same thing.”
