{"id":548942,"date":"2025-11-04T17:54:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T17:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/548942\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T17:54:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T17:54:12","slug":"gregor-townsend-makes-5-changes-to-wider-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/548942\/","title":{"rendered":"Gregor Townsend makes 5 changes to wider squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend has made five changes to his wider training squad for their upcoming Autumn Nations Series Test against the All Blacks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Townsend\u2019s side secured a huge 85-0 win over the USA<\/a> in their November opener last weekend, but face an entirely different challenge this Saturday against the three-time world champions.<\/p>\n

Scotland make five changes to squad ahead of All Blacks Test<\/p>\n

While the manner of the victory might have given him food for thought ahead of the clash with the All Blacks, who come to Scotland off the back of a 26-13 win over Ireland in Chicago, Townsend has instead trimmed his wider training squad down.<\/p>\n

Debutants Harri Morris and Liam McConnell have both been sent back to their clubs, as has Ross Thompson. The decision to send McConnell back would have raised a few eyebrows too, with Townsend full of praise for his efforts last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was excellent,\u201d Townsend<\/a> said of McConnell in his post-match press conference. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to do that in your first cap. The first 10 minutes of my first cap were a nightmare, I missed tackles and I was all over the place.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo deliver your strengths, of which Liam has many, it was an excellent performance. He showed his fitness by being one of our best players in the last 10 minutes and the first 10 minutes too.<\/p>\n

Predicted France team: Antoine Dupont trains as one BIG question mark remains after Fabien Galthie ditches 7-1 split for Springboks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Marcus Smith conundrum: Why Steve Borthwick will start him against Fiji, but does it matter where?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s confirmed what we thought around his potential growth and how he can bring more than just one aspect of the game, which is now what we expect of our forwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Alexander Masibaka has been ruled out of the remaining November Tests with an elbow injury, while Will Hurd is also unavailable with a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n

Glasgow Warriors prop Fin Richardson has been drafted into the squad after making his Scotland<\/a> debut against Samoa earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Updated Scotland squad in full<\/p>\n

Forwards: <\/strong>Ewan Ashman, Josh Bayliss, Magnus Bradbury, Gregor Brown, Scott Cummings, Rory Darge, Jack Dempsey, Matt Fagerson, Zander Fagerson, Grant Gilchrist, Patrick Harrison, Nathan McBeth, Elliot Millar Mills, Andy Onyeama-Christie, D\u2019Arcy Rae, Dylan Richardson, Fin Richardson, Jamie Ritchie, Alex Samuel, Pierre Schoeman, Rory Sutherland, Marshall Sykes, George Turner, Murphy Walker, Max Williamson<\/p>\n

Backs: <\/strong>Fergus Burke, Jamie Dobie, Darcy Graham, Adam Hastings, George Horne, Rory Hutchinson, Tom Jordan, Blair Kinghorn, Stafford McDowall, Arron Reed, Kyle Rowe, Finn Russell, Ollie Smith, Kyle Steyn, Sione Tuipulotu (c), Duhan van der Merwe, Ben White<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Loose Pass: The reasons why Ireland v All Blacks was \u2018not a classic\u2019 as Andy Farrell left with \u2018a lot more awkward\u2019 November<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend has made five changes to his wider training squad for their upcoming Autumn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[93212,225,90462,704,12,4151,712,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-548942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-gregor-townsend","9":"tag-home-page","10":"tag-internationals","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-rugby","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115492714266466368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}