Leinster lock Hines not looking beyond Gunners clash

NATHAN HINES is facing off against his old club and one of his main rivals for a Scotland jersey on Saturday evening, but the Australian born second-row isn’t getting worked up about it.

The Leinster lock doesn’t see any angles for the clash with Edinburgh, his laid back nature meaning this is just another game and he reckons hisperformance will have little impact on whether he gets selected for the November internationals.

“No, doesn’t make a difference to me,” Hines says. “It’s just another team, you just want to play the best you can no matter who the opposition is. There would be seven or eight (Edinburgh players in the Scotland squad) maybe and we’re expecting them to play and it’ll be a full-strength Edinburgh squad.

“I have never looked at whoever we’re playing against and thought ‘maybe if I play better now then I might get selected.’ I just play how I play and the rest is not up to me. Like in this case it’s (Edinburgh lock) Scott MacLeod and it’s up to Andy Robinson.”

The relaxed philosophy has served Hines well in his decade long career as a Scottish international. And his experience is exactly what Joe Schmidt will be looking to in the absence of a host of Ireland frontliners.

Edinburgh are something of a bogey team for the men in blue who lost at Murrayfield last month in their worst performance this season so far. But Hines doesn’t think playing them so recently bears much weight in the build up.

“We’ve got a lot of video on them anyway,” he said. “It makes it easier in that we didn’t play them that long ago and we can look at line-outs and the same players and that, but it really doesn’t make much difference because you’ve got to play them twice anyway so whether it’s now or April it doesn’t matter.

“In the forwards there is Leo and myself so I think there is a little bit more responsibility on us, but the guys who will come in have enough experience anyway so I don’t think there’ll be too much hand holding to be honest.

“I think it’s just making sure that everyone’s up to speed, you don’t step back and wait for guys to catch up you make them run to catch up. So we just make sure they’re up to speed and we’re not pulling things back and hopefully we can continue in the same way we have been and instead of cutting back and maybe not playing as well.

“It’s a bit of everything really. Make sure they do their analysis and what plays we’re running, making sure they know where they should be at certain times and a lot of that isn’t done on the [training] pitch and making sure you know before you go on there.”