Adam Hastings was undergoing tests on head and knee issues after taking a heavy hit in Scotland’s 28-12 win over Fiji. But head coach Gregor Townsend doesn’t plan an emergency call to Finn Russell – yet.
Hastings left BT Murrayfield accompanied by team doctor James Robson after the game, separate from rest on the team bus. But a complete assessment of the starting 10 against Fiji is for later, said Townsend.
“Adam will go through a second process with his head, and he has a knee issue that is getting looked at as well,” said the head coach.
He agreed that Russell would be “in the mix” if another 10 was needed. But he stopped well short of saying the Murrayfield fans’ hero would return after his controversial omission from the original Autumn squad.
‘He will be in the mix, of course’
Adam Hastings transported back to the Edwardian age… pic.twitter.com/hUSuCPkmnZ
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“Since the squad has been together, I’ve not talked to him, no,” added Townsend. “He will be in the mix (if needed) of course.
“Relations (with him) are fine. People who are not in the squad, I don’t phone up regularly unless there’s something to talk about.
“I’d imagine he will be available. He was disappointed not to be selected in the squad. If we decide to bring in another ten, he’s one of the ones we’ll be looking at.
“There are a lot of players out of the camp and within the camp. Our focus has been on the players in the camp in this two-week period.”
Townsend didn’t exactly give the full seal of approval to either Hastings or Blair Kinghorn, who replaced him a 10 after 50 minutes, either.
“I thought Adam did well in a lot of areas,” he said. “We didn’t get as much ball in the first half. When we started changing direction to try to pick off defenders, he looked confident and took his try well.
“Blair, when he came on it was a stop-start game. I thought he put pace on things, but we weren’t as accurate in attack.”
Penalty count again a concern
No stopping Duhan 👊
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Townsend’s main concern was the flood of penalties in the first half, although Scotland sorted that to a degree.
“We can’t give away as many penalties, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’ve also got to convert when we have opportunities, which we didn’t do enough today.
“All the penalties in the first half bar one were against the defence. A lot of that was on the offside line.
“Discipline is a broad area. At times it can be in the set-piece but our set-piece was very strong. It was what we were doing in defence that needs to improve.
“If we do that (concede so many) next week, there is going to be a lot of defending in our own 22, yellow cards and defending with 14 men.
“But we learned the lesson in the first half and it was much better in the second.”