mens
nations-championship
Scotland face a nervous wait to find out the extent of the knee injury that kept captain Sione Tuipulotu out of Sunday’s 15-12 win Australia in Murrayfield.
The center was dealt a blow towards the end of last week’s loss to New Zealand but trained fully on Wednesday and Thursday.
After “feeling something” in his knee after bumping into Blair Kinghorn during Saturday’s captain’s run, Tuipulotu was sent for scans and subsequently withdrawn from Sunday’s game against his native country.
“We’re not sure what it is,” head coach Gregor Townsend said. “He needs to see a knee specialist as soon as possible, so we should get that (prognosis) back on Monday or Tuesday.
“It’s not clear whether it’s a serious injury or not, so we’ll find out in the next 48 hours. I’m glad we checked it out, but whether it’s a week or two or more, I can’t say right now.”
Tuipulotu is unlikely to play in next Saturday’s third match of the November block against Japan, when Townsend is expected to make a number of changes to give other players in the squad a chance to stake a claim for the World Cup.
In his absence against Australia, Rory Darge took over as captain and delivered a man-of-the-match performance to lead his side to victory.
“When a captain who trained all week at 12 doesn’t pass the warm-up or the team run yesterday, then obviously adjustments need to be made,” Townsend noted.
“Stafford (McDowall, who was called up to the bench) was at his farm in the south west so he had to come in. We made a decision that if Tom went into the 12, then we needed a 12 on the bench in case Tom had to move during the game because he was also covering the 10. So it was challenging. But the players knew that too. But the players knew that too.
“Tom (Jordan) was great when he played a few seasons ago and I thought he was great today. And leadership doesn’t rely on one person or two people. There are other guys like Rory Darge, who led very well with his actions and just his calm demeanor.”
“Finn (Russell) has obviously been very important to what we do in attack, Kyle Steyn as vice-captain, there’s a calming presence within that group.
“And the other change we can’t overlook is Scott Cummings, our leader in the line, who started so early and Gregor Brown and Max Williamson, the young internationals, for one, I thought they were excellent. Their physicality, when the game is going to be played mostly without a nine or a pick-and-go, you need your front five to bring that physicality to.”
Cummings was forced off after 25 minutes against the Wallabies after straining his adductor thigh muscle and is likely to miss at least Japan the game.
“He’s had an ultrasound initially so he doesn’t look too bad; he’ll probably get an MRI as well,” Townsend reported. “But obviously he left the field today, he felt he couldn’t continue, so that would put him in doubt for next week.”