More bad news for Scotland

A car accident involving the family of Scotland lock Nathan Hines after Sunday’s 32-11 win over Japan put a further damper on the squad’s spirits as they returned to Brisbane from Townsville on Monday.

Talk of points and performances after Sunday’s win was put aside by the accident near Dairy Farmers Stadium, which five members of Hines’ family in hospital, although all were discharged on Monday morning.

Hines’ parents, Pat and Avon, his wife Leann, her mother Anne Whiteside and grandmother Mary Kelly all escaped serious injury.

Their hired vehicle was written off after it was struck from behind by another car at traffic lights. Police, fire and ambulance all attended the incident.

“They were in hospital for five hours,” said Hines. “All of them were in neck braces for a while except my mum. I’m just glad that none of them was seriously hurt.

“When I heard they’d been in an accident and the car was a wreck, well, you could imagine how I felt.”

Hines was able to travel with the squad as they flew back to Brisbane and then bussed up to their training base in Caloundra with plenty to think about after their patchy performance.

The fact they were returning from their foray into the tropics with five points and no injuries to players did not disguise the need for some serious work on their Sunshine Coast training ground.

“It’s the quality of ball that counts and that’s where we were a bit weak,” coach Ian McGeechan said of his team’s failure to deal effectively with the Japanese. “We’ve obviously got things to work on and that’s what we’ll do.”

He now faces the task of preparing for the uncertain challenge of the United States at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium on October 18.

But the key for McGeechan and his charges now is to prove they have the game to succeed, not against the Eagles but against the impressive French and potent Fijians.

“We now have to go up a couple of levels. We know the shape of the game that we want to produce but we must get into shape to do it.”

That probably means some serious work on patterns both attacking and defensive after the Japanese resisted the Scottish momentum with disconcerting ease and caused problems with their backline movement.

But the Scots are at least intact. New Zealand, Australia and England have pressing, even debilitating, injury concerns, while France trained four players short on Monday evening.

McGeechan’s relief at escaping from Townsville without any damaged personnel was just as apparent as it was over the win and bonus point.