Scotland names two captains

Times Online.UK - Tuesday, November 03, 2009 12:24 PM

The new structure was explained to the players when the squad met in St Andrews yesterday to start preparations for the Fiji game.

NOT content with naming a single Scotland captain for the autumn internationals, Andy Robinson, the head coach, took the radical step of naming two yesterday.

His decision to put both Mike Blair and Chris Cusiter in charge also means that he is no closer to confirming which of the scrum halves will start the opening international against Fiji at Murrayfield on November 14.

The revelation came in a e-mail bulletin that Robinson intends to send to registered supporters before all three of the November internationals as part of an initiative to be as proactive and accessible as possible.

The programme will also include a public training session next Monday evening.

“Leadership is not about one person,” Robinson writes in his message. “It’s about developing a number of leaders. This year we are going to have two captains — Mike Blair and Chris Cusiter; two world-class players; two world-class people.

“What that enables me to do is that whichever is selected will lead the team — but off the pitch the two will lead the team together.”

It is not the first time Robinson has experimented with double captaincy, he inherited the twin leadership structure when he took over Edinburgh with Allister Hogg and Simon Cross jointly in charge and kept it in place when Blair took over from Hogg in his second season.

The double-captain move also confirms his summer feeling that whoever he picks at scrum half will lead the side.

The new structure was explained to the players when the squad met in St Andrews yesterday to start preparations for the Fiji game.

All 35 who had been invited to the session were able to make it, but not all were able to train, though there were positive developments on the health of Chris Paterson, who has been on an intensive antibiotic treatment to combat a foot infection.

Though the full back missed Sunday’s club game, James Robson, the Scotland doctor, says that he should be back in action before the camp ends tomorrow.

“Of the Edinburgh players on duty last night we’ll look to give a bit of time for the bumps and bruises to settle,” Robson said.

Of the others who were giving cause for concern, Ben Cairns, who hobbled off with a knee injury, is not expected to train today while his injury continues to be assessed, but Alan MacDonald, who was a late withdrawal from Sunday’s match against Newport Gwent Dragons, is expected to return to action without much more delay.

The other injuries were to Nikki Walker, the Ospreys wing, who is also expected to take a full part in training today after sustaining a cut below his eye against Glasgow, and Alasdair Dickinson, the Gloucester prop.

“He [Dickinson] will be going to Spire Murrayfield Hospital for some isokinetic testing as part of the assessment process following the shoulder injury he sustained last month. This testing basically involves exercising the shoulder in various positions,” Robson said.

For the Edinburgh players in the squad, there were also developments at their headquarters when Nic Cartwright, the chief executive, said that the professional club is again to go to the city’s business community looking for outside investors.

“We need to show a further step forward in the generation of high-level corporate support,” he said.

“We have a good range of sponsors, but many of our competitors are funded by a far greater range of income streams and we need to start identifying these streams.

We plan to proactively interact more with Edinburgh’s substantial corporate market place to both aid and speed up the club’s development.”