Rory Hutchinson at the captain’s run on the eve of last November’s home test against Portugal.
Image: © Craig Watson.
www.craigwatson.co.uk 
RORY Hutchinson has joined the Scotland squad for the three-game summer tour as a replacement for Matt Currie, who has dropped out with a hamstring injury. Scottish Rugby announced the change at lunchtime today (Tuesday).
Now 29, Northampton Saints centre Hutchinson made his national debut in the 2019 World Cup warm-up match against France in Nice. Six years on, he still only has eight caps, having narrowly missed out on selection two or three times. Although, like Currie, he has been seen in the past as primarily a 13, he was regularly fielded at 12 by Northampton in the season just ended – most recently in the Champions Cup final, which the Saints lost to Bordeaux-Begles. Again like Currie, Hutchinson also has the pace to play on the wing if required.
Edinburgh centre Currie, 24, made his Scotland debut against Canada on last year’s summer tour of the Americas. He has four caps to date.
Currie joins an injury list that also includes his Edinburgh team-mate Dave Cherry and Glasgow forward Jack Dempsey. Other notable absentees include Scotland’s seven-strong Lions contingent – Finn Russell, Blair Kinghorn, Pierre Schoeman, Duhan van der Merwe, Sione Tuipulotu, Huw Jones and Scott Cummings – as well as Zander Fagerson, who earlier this month had to pull out of Andy Farrell’s squad for the three-Test series against the Wallabies after failing to recover from injury on time.
Second-row forwards Sam Skinner and Jonny Gray are among the players whom Scotland coach Gregor Townsend has chosen to rest.