WHATEVER else provoked the Edinburgh selectors' discussions in cabal
last night, they had to sort out the conundrums of who will be Kenneth
Milne's props for the 113th Inter-city match against Glasgow at
Goldenacre two weeks on Saturday. It is a case of perming two from three
-- Duncan Wilson, Grant Wilson, and Stuart Paul.
Two international props are not available. David Sole has retired, and
Peter Wright damaged knee ligaments while he was playing for Boroughmuir
in the 25-11 victory over Currie on Saturday. The injury will keep him
out of rugby for at least three weeks.
Only Grant Wilson, Boroughmuir's loose head, and Paul, the Herioter,
remain of the four props whom Edinburgh have called on for their past 10
matches, but those two are not certainties for the Inter-city.
Duncan Wilson's promotion to Scotland's squad for the Murrayfield
work-out on Sunday promoted the inevitable debate whether Edinburgh
Academicals' recruit from Currie or his Boroughmuir namesake would
appear as the first name among the forwards. I hear that the Edinburgh
selectors, like their national counterparts, have been impressed by
Duncan Wilson's ability in tight and loose.
Edinburgh could opt for both Wilsons -- Duncan as loose head, and
Grant on the right. Most of the latter's club rugby has been on the
left, but he has been happy enough to switch over to the tight head when
needed. Six of his 10 games for Edinburgh have been on that side, five
of them to accommodate Sole, and the Boroughmuir Wilson was even
preferred to his club colleague, Wright, as right prop for the Test
match on Scotland's 1989 tour in Japan.
Paul was Scotland's tight-head cornerstone in the Students World Cup,
and he has become well established as his club's right prop in
succession to Iain Milne, though he is as adaptable as Grant Wilson.
The Goldenacre prop has played twice at tight head for Edinburgh and
three times on the other side, including both games on the district's
development tour in the North of England in September, when Wright was
on the right.
Official answers to those questions will be declared today, as will
the North and Midlands team to meet the South in Dundee, also two weeks
on Saturday -- unless the selection committees prefer to wait until they
know which of their players will not be available because of the Dubai
sevens on the Thursday and Friday before those initial matches in the
McEwan's district championship.
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