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Hogg, Russell and Price among six Scotland players disciplined - report
By Ian Cameron
The BBC are reporting that six Scotland played have been disciplined internally following a breach of team protocols last weekend following their Six Nations win in Rome.
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Upon return to Scotland, skipper Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell, Ali Price, Darcy Graham, Sam Johnson and Sione Tuipulotu were sanctioned after they apparently left the team hotel to visit a bar in Edinburgh.
According to the report the players were told to return to their team hotel by management when their trip became known to staff.
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The SRU said in a statement: “The Scotland management team have this week dealt with a post-match matter involving six players following the game against Italy last weekend.
“The players involved have been spoken to individually and those conversations and outcomes will remain private.
“Preparations for the match against Ireland this week have been good and the whole squad is fully focused on achieving a positive result on Saturday.”
Hogg, Price, Graham and Johnson all start against Ireland, while Russell is named on the bench.
The incident of course evokes memories of ‘Finngate’ in 2020, when Russell left the Scotland camp after a situation involving his reluctance to leave a hotel bar.
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When approached by team-mates and members of Townsend’s backroom staff during that episode, he ignored requests to stop drinking and later left the hotel to return to his parents’ home in Stirling.
Russell was a no-show at training the next day and was then informed he would not be selected for duty against Ireland. Russell then opted to return to Paris and miss the remainder of that tournament.
It was an episode the SRU would have liked to forget and it took months to mend the relationship between head coach Gregor Townsend and Russell.
In this year’s competition, Scotland have defeated England and Italy but were well beaten by Wales and France. Russell started all four matches without excelling and was sin-binned in the Wales game.
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Scotland are now looking to end the tournament on a high with a rare win away to Ireland.
“I think it’s been a mixed bag, with inconsistency,” said back row Hamish Watson, reflecting on his side’s performance in the tournament so far. “It started really well, on such a positive note (against England), but we didn’t manage to back it up against Wales and that hit our confidence.
“We’ve worked hard this tournament but I don’t think we’ve played at our best so it’s about trying to put everything together and put in a performance against Ireland.
“I think if we got a win away in Ireland, which is going to be a tough task, it would be a nice way to top off the tournament.”
Ireland have a chance of winning the Six Nations, if France slip-up against England, and have beaten Scotland in each of their last six meetings.
“It’s a very tough place to go and play,” said Watson.
“It’s quite a hostile environment but we believe in ourselves and the last time we went there (in the Six Nations), it was decided within a try so it should be a tight game.
“Ireland are one of the in-form teams in world rugby so we’re excited to test ourselves against them.”
Much of the pre-match chat has centred around Townsend’s decision to replace Russell with Blair Kinghorn at stand-off. The former is deemed one of the top number 10s in the world, while the latter is relatively untried in the position at the top level having only converted to stand-off this season.
Watson is an Edinburgh team-mate of Kinghorn’s and has backed the 25-year-old to handle the responsibility of such a key role in the Aviva Stadium.
“I’ve been playing with Blair since he joined Edinburgh when he was about 18 so I’m really happy for him,” said Watson.
“It’s exciting for him. He’s similar in a way to Finn because he’s a very chilled-out guy, very calm, and I think that will help him against Ireland.
“I don’t think he’ll let the occasion get to him. He’s been great for Edinburgh this season, really exciting, so hopefully he can take that on to the international stage.”
Scotland: Stuart Hogg (captain), Darcy Graham, Chris Harris, Sam Johnson, Kyle Steyn, Blair Kinghorn, Ali Price; Matt Fagerson, Hamish Watson, Rory Darge, Grant Gilchrist, Jonny Gray, Zander Fagerson, George Turner, Pierre Schoeman.
Reserves: Fraser Brown, Allan Dell, WP Nel, Sam Skinner, Josh Bayliss, Ben White, Finn Russell, Mark Bennett.
additional reporting PA
Sick of "it's only a beer" chat! These are professional sportsmen who have agreed, among themselves, a code of conduct. Follow it or feck off!