Southwell ruled out for Scotland’s last tangle in Paris
Southwell suffered the injury to his left shoulder during the first half against Ireland and will be out of action for up to three months following surgery.
Southwell’s colleague, Scott Murray believes Scotland’s forwards must provide a better platform for their much-maligned backs to express themselves in Paris.
The Scotland pack is regarded as the best the country has produced for some time – while the backs are widely considered to lack the firepower to trouble the world’s tightest defences.
Frank Hadden’s side are increasingly reliant on the metronomic boot of Chris Paterson for their points, with Edinburgh lock Murray admitting: “we are a good team but we need everyone to play 100% or we won’t play well. We can’t have any passengers.
“The frustrating thing is we are training under pressure and running the patterns really well. It’s just when it comes to games that we aren’t stringing any phases together.
“Whether we are panicking or not having confidence in the way we’re trying to play I don’t know but there is a belief in the squad that we can do something special – we just haven’t brought it out yet.
“I hope it just clicks into place and we get guys like big Rob Dewey running into space and get Chris Paterson running at the opposition. I think we need to create a bit more space for the backs. As forwards we seem to be throwing the ball to them and say ‘right, do something with that and we’ll mop up’. So we have to have a look at the way we are playing and try to create a few more holes.”
Murray, a Lions tourist in 2001, admits it was a relief that Scotland eventually got the Italy nightmare out of their system with a determined performance against Eddie O’Sullivan’s men.
But the former Saracens forward insists there is a lot more to come from a Scotland side desperate to make its mark at the top of the world game.
He said: “The two teams didn’t really play the way they wanted to. There were plenty of things which went right for us but our general team pattern wasn’t quite right. We were really disappointed but we’re trying to take the positives from it because Ireland are the second or third best team in the world. We were right up there with them.
“We need to pick the bones out of what happened on Saturday and look forward to France this weekend.
“I thought we had done enough to win it but obviously those penalties at the end killed us. We’re just disappointed we got so close, despite not playing all that well and not getting our patterns going. That’s something we maybe have to change.
“They made a couple of breaks, as you’re bound to do when you’ve got D’Arcy and O’Driscoll, but our defence was fine on the whole.
“The boys were flying in to tackles and it is certainly not a lack of effort that’s hurting us. We’re giving 100% but it’s just not quite happening.
“After the Italy game and the way we were beaten it’s tough to come back from that and at the start against Ireland we sat back and it was as if we were waiting to see what they would do. To be honest when they scored their try it was a kick up the backside and we responded.”
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