Hadden fears World Cup crisis

Scotland head coach Frank Hadden claims next month’s World Cup could suffer and his own squad could be left threadbare because of the rule allowing each country to take just 30 players to the tournament.

Hadden confirmed the make-up of his squad today, with stand-off Gordon Ross notable for his omission as Chris Paterson and Dan Parks were chosen to contest the crucial role.

He was quick to point to the danger of members of his squad sustaining injuries, and fears there is a very real danger of teams being forced to mix and match in order to get 15 fit players on the pitch.

“There should be 33 or 34 players in the squad,” said Hadden.

“It took the Heineken Cup guys a while to work out that for the product to be enhanced you need more people available, and then some of the harder decisions could be made a lot easier.

“As it is, there are huge elements of risk everywhere in the squad. The regulations say you can’t bring anyone fresh in within 48 hours [before your next match].

“So imagine if Kelly Brown were to go down ill the night before a match – as he did before the French game earlier this year – and you are already carrying a few injuries in the back row. You’d be stuffed – absolutely stuffed.

“We have to try to have as much cover as we possibly can, but with only 30 guys we can’t cover everywhere.

“I’d be very surprised if the other coaches didn’t feel the same way as I do on this issue.”

While the tendency among the other competing nations has been to select 16 forwards and 14 backs in their initial squads, Hadden has opted for a 17-13 split.

He believes Scotland’s hectic schedule – which sees them take on Romania, New Zealand then Italy within an 11-day period – will have a particularly punishing effect on his pack.

“It is something we talked about for a long time,” Hadden explained, “but in the end the string of games so close together meant we had to err on the forward side, and take into account the pressure they are going to be under during these few games.

“Out of the 22 which played against Ireland on Saturday, we had seven unable to train yesterday and six unable to train today.

“That’s just par for the course in international rugby, and as you would expect they are mainly forwards, so in the end we thought it was wiser to go for the 17-13 split.

“Perhaps the fact that we had a bit more versatility to call on in our backline allowed us to do that.”

Hadden was confident enough to include scrum-half Chris Cusiter in his squad, after fears over the 25-year-old’s left ankle injury were substantially allayed by team doctors.

And Hadden has promised the nine players who missed out on the final 30 that their efforts in Scotland’s extended World Cup training camp over the summer will not be forgotten.

He also pointed out to them that in previous World Cups an average of three players per tournament have been drafted into the squad as injury cover - meaning there is a very real chance several of them could still feature in France 2007.

He said: “I reminded the guys who didn’t make it that they are only a phone call away from being back in the squad.

“They should be proud of their efforts and they know they’ve got to be ready, willing and able if the call comes.

“We have finally got ourselves into a position where there really is competition for places in every department, and the intensity of the competition is something we were delighted with, even if it gave the selectors plenty of headaches.”