• Coach needs big improvement on 32-3 drubbing in Nice• Cummings, Skinner and Thomson can press
World Cup claimsFour weeks before Scotland’s opening game of the World Cup against
Ireland, the visit of
France on Saturday is a final audition for some players hoping to make the plane to Japan. There is still a trip to Georgia next week before the head coach, Gregor Townsend, finalises his 31-man party, but time is running out for certain individuals and for the team as a whole.
After the nightmare in Nice last weekend, thorny questions have resurfaced about Scotland’s fallibility in the face of raw power, and their inability to solve problems on the hoof. While the heat and humidity may have been factors, the Scots were so far off the pace it made a mockery of Townsend’s pre-match claim his players were in “the best physical shape they have ever been”.