It was announced this week that Scotland’s assistant coaches, Steve Tandy (defence), John Dalziel (forwards), and Pieter de Villiers (scrum), have recently renewed their contracts, meaning the three coaches will be working with Scotland beyond the Rugby World Cup, until at least April 2026, alongside Townsend who has also recently renewed his contract. After a disastrous World Cup performance across the board in 2019 enforced a reshuffle, long-term incumbent Matt Taylor was given the heave-ho, and Steve Tandy was brought in as a replacement. With an instant positive impact, Tandy was part of t ..read more

Glasgow’s first European final! You can discuss the game and the end of the season here. Date: Fri 19 May 2023 KO: 20:00 Venue: Aviva Stadium Glasgow Warriors: 15. Oliver Smith, 14. Sebastian Cancelliere, 13. Huw Jones, 12. Sione Tuipulotu, 11. Kyle Steyn (c), 10. Domingo Miotti, 9. George Horne; 1. Jamie Bhatti, 2. Fraser Brown, 3. Zander Fagerson, 4. JP du Preez, 5. Scott Cummings, 6. Matt Fagerson, 7. Sione Vailanu, 8. Jack Dempsey. Replacements: 16. Johnny Matthews, 17. Nathan McBeth, 18. Simon Berghan, 19. Ric ..read more

On this week’s podcast we preview Glasgow’s Diddy Cup final against Toulon and try and figure out what is going on with the Edinburgh squad announcement. We broadcast the podcast live and you can watch and join in on the night. You can also choose to watch or listen back afterwards by one of our video or podcast channels: YouTube – www.youtube.com/scottishrugbyblog Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-scottish-rugby-podcast/id1195370479?mt=2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3gmKpRaLw8kBYDXpkmLnim Acast: https://www.acast.com/scottishrugbyblog Or alternat ..read more

In this weeks episode, John is joined by Lisa Martin and David Lawrence from Scrum of the Earth https://t.co/KzKhA9qz4c to review the most pointless squad Gregor has ever announced…. We broadcast the podcast live and you can watch and join in on the night. You can also choose to watch or listen back afterwards by one of our video or podcast channels: YouTube – www.youtube.com/scottishrugbyblog Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-scottish-rugby-podcast/id1195370479?mt=2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3gmKpRaLw8kBYDXpkmLnim Acast: https://www.acast.com/sc ..read more

Tom Jordan has been suspended for 5 matches following a recent red card, leaving Glasgow with a problem filling the playmaker role for their remaining fixture of the season, the European Challenge Cup final against Toulon on Friday 19th May. A player must not tackle an opponent early, late or dangerously. Dangerous tackling includes, but is not limited to, tackling or attempting to tackle an opponent above the line of the shoulders even if the tackle starts below the line of the shoulders. Law 9.13 During the URC Quarter Final loss to Munster, Glasgow standoff Tom Jordan was red-carded by ref ..read more

Scotland Rugby head coach Gregor Townsend today announced his initial World Cup training squad, on the same day that it was revealed he had accepted a contract extension that will see him continue as Scotland coach until April 2026. For this year’s Rugby World Cup in France, Townsend has announced an initial squad of 41 players, which will later be trimmed down to a 33-player list. The team will again be captained by Jamie Ritchie, with Rory Darge and Darcy Graham returning to the squad after missing out on the Guinness Six Nations due to injury. Darge in particular will add some pressure on R ..read more

An accomplished 36-10 defeat of Ireland gave Scotland the best possible finish to the 2023 Women’s Six Nations, securing fourth place for the first time since 2017 and their biggest victory in the Six Nations in twenty years. It also secured them a place in Tier 2 of the new WXV competition that was launched today and will take place in the autumn. But most importantly, this was a game where both backs and forwards shone, and where both attack and defence worked well, especially in the impressive, five-try, second-half performance. Power of resilience The first half of the game would not have ..read more

In this weeks episode, John is joined by Craig, Jonny and Lisa Martin to review the fantastic TikTok 6 Nations weekend We broadcast the podcast live and you can watch and join in on the night. You can also choose to watch or listen back afterwards by one of our video or podcast channels: YouTube – www.youtube.com/scottishrugbyblog Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-scottish-rugby-podcast/id1195370479?mt=2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3gmKpRaLw8kBYDXpkmLnim Acast: https://www.acast.com/scottishrugbyblog Or alternatively search for Scottish Rugby Pod ..read more

After 12 games of heartbreak and several incredibly tight losses, Scotland broke their streak with a commanding performance against Italy. It was made all the more impressive by coming against the Six Nations team that, apart from England and France, they have most struggled against in recent years, and a team ranked six places higher in the world rankings at kick off. Here are some talking points from Saturday’s win. All power to the forwards Scotland’s forwards decided to not only live up to the cliché that forwards win matches but also take the other half of the phrase and decide by how muc ..read more

For their second away game, Scotland once again took on a team far ahead in terms of development and resources and found themselves on the wrong end of a big defeat. As with their game against England, it makes more sense to judge Scotland on whether they met the standards we can reasonably hope for, rather than expect them to already be reaching the standards of France. And in that, with one big exception they were just above those standards in the first half, but unfortunately fell away significantly against a classy French outfit in the second, and without the positive late rally we saw in ..read more