Scotland coach Gregor Townsend insists he has picked his strongest team to face Fiji at Murrayfield on Saturday, but there is no place in the team for former captain Jamie Ritchie.
Townsend’s team will host the Fijians in the opening match of the Autumn Nations Series in front of a sold-out crowd at the national stadium.
With the game falling outside the official testing window, the Scotland squad is made up almost entirely of domestic players based at Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh.
Sione Tuipulotu will captain the central team in what is a strong defensive line alongside Huw Jones, Duhan van der Merwe and the fit Darcy Graham.
But the absence of Ritchie, the defender who captained Scotland to last year’s World Cup, is purely due to selection based on form.
Tuipulotu, left, and Darcy Graham will reunite in Scotland colors against Fiji
No place in squad for former Scotland captain Jamie Ritchie
Gregor Townsend has chosen his strongest possible team for the first autumn test
Ritchie has been in and out of the team during this year’s Six Nations due to poor form, and Townsend has challenged him to fight his way back to face world champions South Africa next weekend.
“Yes, it’s a selection decision,” said Townsend, who instead selected a Glasgow Warriors backline of Rory Darge, Matt Fagerson and Jack Dempsey.
“I think Glasgow’s back line is in top form. Jamie is competing with Rory, who is the vice-captain on the open side, and obviously Matt on the blind side.
‘With Jack Dempsey too, those three have the approval. With Gregor Brown, we feel like he’s really contributed something off the bench.
“This allows Jamie to focus on next week and he can really compete with others to be in the South Africa team.”
Fiji will be without several of its star players who play for clubs across Europe and will instead have to select its own national team.
Sione Tuipulotu will captain the Scottish team against Fiji at Murrayfield
Dary Graham returns to the Scottish national team after a long absence due to injury
The dynamic van der Merwe will be part of a very strong Scottish team
Huw Jones also takes his place in the Scottish squad as the autumn series gets underway.
But Townsend is still wary of the threat they will pose, especially given their good form, which saw them beat Japan 41-17 just a few weeks ago.
“This will be a very tough test match,” he said. ‘I think this Fiji team, 11 of the starting 15 just beat Japan by scoring 40 points. They have had a great summer.
“This is a tougher test because we are playing against a cohesive Fijian team that has been together all season.
‘So that’s number one. We have a responsibility to win Test matches and build what we believe is our strongest team to achieve this.
“The second is that we have a match against the world champions in eight days and we need our players to be up to date. We have only had two training sessions.
“So the best way to do it is to get them out, play together, play at Test match level.”
“So, yeah, that’s why we’ve picked what we think is our strongest team.” As for opportunities for others to play, they will come during this period. We have four test matches plus an A match.
‘We have a core of 45 now. That will extend to 50 when we get to the final weekend when we play Chile and Australia. But we can mix things up for the game against Portugal.”
