Scotland Roster with Surprises for North and South American Tour

Scotland will be taking a 37-man roster to tour the Americas next month. The historic tour sees Scotland playing four test matches in four different countries in the Western Hemisphere. Scotland will play two test matches in North America and two in South America, doing so against Canada, the USA, Chile and Uruguay.

For the tour Head Coach Gregor Townsend has selected players from United Rugby Championship (URC), the English Premiership and the French Top 14 in the 2023-2024 season.

TOUR FIXTURES

Sat, July 06 vs (Ottawa, CA)

Fri, July 12 vs  (Washington, DC)

Sat, July 20 vs (Santiago, CL)

Sat, July 27 vs (Montevideo, UY)

 

SCOTLAND ROSTER – FORWARDS

PROP
Will Hurd (Leicester Tigers), Nathan McBeth (Glasgow Warriors), Elliot Millar-Mills (Northampton Saints), Javan Sebastian (Edinburgh), Pierre Schoeman (Edinburgh), Rory Sutherland (Oyonnax), Murphy Walker (Glasgow Warriors)

HOOKER
Ewan Ashman (Edinburgh), Patrick Harrison (Edinburgh), Robbie Smith (Northampton Saints)

SECOND-ROW
Alex Craig (Scarlets), Scott Cummings (Glasgow Warriors), Ewan Johnson (Oyonnax), Max Williamson (Glasgow Warriors), Glen Young (Edinburgh)

BACK-ROW
Josh Bayliss (Bath), Gregor Brown (Glasgow Warriors), Luke Crosbie (Edinburgh), Rory Darge (Glasgow Warriors), Matt Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors), Dylan Richardson (Sharks), Jamie Ritchie (Edinburgh)

 

SCOTLAND ROSTER – BACKS

SCRUM-HALF
Jamie Dobie (Glasgow Warriors), George Horne (Glasgow Warriors), Gus Warr (Sale Sharks)

FLY HALF
Adam Hastings (Gloucester), Ben Healy (Edinburgh), Ross Thompson (Glasgow Warriors),

CENTER
Matt Currie (Edinburgh), Huw Jones (Glasgow Warriors), Stafford McDowall (Glasgow Warriors), Sione Tuipulotu (Glasgow Warriors)

WING
Arron Reed (Sale Sharks), Kyle Rowe (Glasgow Warriors), Kyle Steyn (Glasgow Warriors), Duhan van der Merwe (Edinburgh)

FULLBACK
Harry Paterson (Edinburgh)

 

MISSING AND RETURNING NAMES

Scotland have rested some players. They include second-rowers Grant Gilchrist and Richie Gray, fly half Finn Russell, scrum-halves Ali Price and Ben White, fullback Blair Kinghorn, prop Zander Fagerson and former Wallaby N8 Jack Dempsey.

Finn Russell’s spot has gone to Adam Hastings. He and N8 Josh Bayliss are notable returning players. Both missed the Six Nations through injury. There is also a recall for hooker Dylan Richardson who also play back-row. The South African debuted for Scotland against Japan in 2021.

 

UNCAPPED PLAYERS

Townsend is using the opportunity to blood new players. Ten members of his roster are uncapped. Robbie Smith leads the list. Smith is a former Scotland u20 captain. He is joined by Nathan McBeth and Will Hurd as other uncapped props for the tour.

Additional new names are hooker Patrick Harrison, second-rowers Ewan Johnson and Max Williamson, flanker Gregor Brown, scrum-half Gus Warr, center Matt Currie, and winger Arron Reed.

 

FOREIGN-BORN AND HOMEGROWN PLAYERS

Scotland’s roster for Rugby World Cup 2023 was 47% foreign-born. 50% of the players were homegrown and 50% were not. That is to say Scotland Rugby clubs or Scottish schools were not primarily responsible for the development of half of the roster. Scotland’s overall player selection for the 2024 Six Nations included 48 players. 24 were born outside of Scotland.

The uncapped players continue are similar as five of the ten are not homegrown Scotland rugby players. Ewan Johnson has lived in France since he was four. South African Nathan McBeth played for South Africa Schools as well as for the country in u18 and u20s. He qualifies for Scotland via a grandparent. Will Hurd’s connection to Scotland is also via a grandparent. England u20 winger Arron Reed qualifies via his father and England u20 scrum-half Gus Warr qualifies via his mother.

The roster also has a connection to the Americas. Ewan Ashman is was born in Toronto, Canada. He moved to England at the age of four and is a product of English rugby. His father is Scottish and his mother is English.