McGeechan wants best for last

Scotland coach Ian McGeechan today admitted that his players must produce their best performance of the three countdown Tests if they are to finish their World Cup preparations with victory over Ireland.

After their impressive mauling of Italy at Murrayfield, they came crashing back down to earth with a 23-9 defeat to Wales on Saturday.

McGeechan has again been forced to make changes to his starting 15 for the visit of the Irish to Edinburgh this weekend, but he is confident those selected can bounce back from the Cardiff reverse.

“You want a good performance all-round in your last countdown game,” said the Scotland coach.

“Although we’ve mixed and matched the teams so far we also want to get runs out of them and that’s why last Saturday was disappointing because we didn’t play anywhere near as well as we wanted to.

“Ireland are very confident and playing well so we have to match, them so our performance has to be the best of the three so far.

“Ireland have kept a strong combination together so they’re playing confidently again after the tour to the Southern Hemisphere.

“They haven’t collected any injuries so they have been able to go through the players they wanted to see play.

“There’s some very good players and a good squad so it is up to us to match them with a good performance.”

Because of injuries, Gwent Dragons lock Ross Beattie and Edinburgh prop Allan Jacobsen has been drafted into the Scotland team for the final RBS World Cup warm-up Test against Ireland on Saturday.

Beattie is a late replacement in the team for Jason White, who has suffered a setback in his recovery from a back problem, and he joins Tom Smith, Bruce Douglas and Scott Murray on the sidelines.

The Gwent back-row forward and Jacobsen, who were on Scotland’s tour to New Zealand three years ago, will be making their first international starts at Murrayfield.

Chris Paterson returns to the side after missing last week’s defeat at Wales, along with Kenny Logan and Andrew Henderson.

McGeechan has paired stand-off Gordon Ross with scrum-half Mike Blair, who impressed in the first warm-up game against Italy on August 23.

Gavin Kerr moves to prop and takes his place alongside captain Gordon Bulloch and Jacobsen in the front row.

But despite the injury concerns, McGeechan admits that his team selection will not be too far away from the one which kicks off their World Cup campaign against Japan on October 12.

“It’s not strictly the final selection but we aren’t too far away,” he said.

“We’ve obviously got some injuries which we could have done without.

“Both props have missed out and unfortunately Jason White hasn’t recovered fully from his back injury so we don’t want to risk him.

“That gives us a line-up in which we’ve tried to build on the first two teams we’ve selected.”

The Scotland coach is close to finalising his own squad in his mind but has left the door open for any late surprises.

“We always wanted to put out a strong team for our third game and we’ve done that,” added McGeechan

“I think we’re pretty close. People like Allan Jacobsen have come in and there is definitely an opportunity for one or two.

“It is often the last two or three selections that really cement the side.”

McGeechan believes that last week’s defeat in the Millennium Stadium has given his players a kick – but he is confident that they have learned from that pain to avoid another problem.

“It was a wake-up call for a few players,” he added.

“Somebody suggested to me that you probably learn from games like that.

“In some respects you do or you hope the players do, but it’s stupid to get that amount of possession and use it very indifferently, which is what we did.

“I’m sure they have learned a lesson. You don’t want to have to learn the same lessons twice.

“If you are getting consistent then you should be able to work on the back of good performances and rectify the things that have gone wrong on bad days - that’s something we still have to be better at.”