Scots ease Lions pain for Gregor

13 April 2012

Gregor Townsend will resume normal business with Scotland next week, none the worse for his ?painful? summer omission from the Lions tour to Australia.

As if the decision to leave him behind was not hard enough to fathom at the time, it can now be revealed that the France-based fly half had been a victim of muddled thinking before the Test series began.

Faced with one of their recurring crises over injury, the Lions made an emergency call to Townsend during the week of the opening Test in Brisbane in late June, amid fears that Will Greenwood and Neil Jenkins were about to be written off.

The Scot had already been overlooked twice, first when the selectors preferred Jenkins and Ronan O?Gara as the alternatives to Jonny Wilkinson, then during the earlier stages of the tour when they summoned Scott Gibbs to replace Mike Catt.

Townsend said: ?A few days after being told it was between Scott and me, I had a call from the Lions telling me to be ready to catch a flight from Paris to Australia at noon the next day.

?I was told that Neil and Will were struggling with injury and that they would call me tomorrow. But I had no phone call and was later told that the two players were feeling much better.?

Greenwood took no further part in the tour and has not played since damaging an ankle against New South Wales in Sydney 12 weeks ago. Jenkins is also still in the throes of recovering from a swollen knee.

None of the players left behind on the official standby list had more reason to wonder what was going on than Townsend, not that he complained. The official explanation for going without him had been because of the Lions? insistence on taking three goal-kicking fly halves, even though they had other place-kickers in Matt Dawson and Matt Perry.

The pre-tour policy, that they could not afford to be without the insurance of goal-kicking fly half cover for Wilkinson, was scrapped by the time the Tests began. Austin Healey?s deserved promotion as the reserve stand off in Brisbane reflected badly on Jenkins and O?Gara. It also touched a raw nerve for Townsend, watching from afar.

He said: ?That was painful, seeing two scrum halves on the bench and no stand off. The Tests were great matches but it was painful watching the midweek games.?

Small wonder that Townsend, a winning Lion in South Africa four years ago, found watching the tour hard going, especially after the selectors had witnessed his match-winning game for Castres against Stade Francais in Paris the weekend before the party was finalised.

He said: ?I was desperately disappointed. I have been dropped once by Scotland but this was the biggest disappointment. With your country, you can bounce back quickly. With the Lions you have to wait four years. I?ll be 32 when the next tour comes round so this was probably my last chance.?

His reinstatement at stand off for the delayed Six Nations match against Ireland at Murrayfield on Saturday week sends him head-to-head with O?Gara as the Scots welcome Glen Metcalfe back from injury.

Roland Reid, the one uncapped player among the 25 which will be whittled down to 22 next week, is a wing built on Jonah Lomu-like lines at 6ft 5in and 17st. He also has the same capacity for running over opponents, although whether a Celtic League hattrick against Pontypridd is sufficient cause for a cap remains to be seen.

With wings Cammy Murray and Jon Steel doubtful, Reid could go straight in and build on his family?s sporting fame. His great uncle, Don Kichenbrand, played centre forward for Rangers in the Fifties.

SCOTLAND ? Backs: G Metcalfe, C Paterson, K Logan, C Murray, R Reid, J Steel, J Leslie, J McLaren, G Townsend, D Hodge, B Redpath, A Nichol. Forwards: T Smith, G Graham, M Stewart, S Scott, G Bulloch, S Grimes, S Murray, J White, B Pountney, G Simpson, M Leslie, S Taylor, J Petrie.

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