Scotland squad for Autumn Tests to be revealed with injury concerns and World Cup position on line

On November 1, Scotland take on USA, before facing New Zealand on November 8, Argentina on November 16 and Tonga on November 23. All the games are at Murrayfield and will have a significant bearing on Scotland’s world ranking and seeding for December’s World Cup draw.

The 2027 event takes place in Australia and is an expanded tournament to 24 teams. The top six teams in the world will be in ‘band A’ for the December 3 draw, with Scotland currently sitting eighth in the rankings.

Breaking into the top six is a realistic proposition, however. Scotland currently have a points total of 81.57, with seventh-placed Australia on 82.93 and sixth-placed Argentina on 83.82. It makes the match against the Pumas a must-win for Townsend and his players.

Scotland have suffered pain at the past two previous World Cups with challenging draws. They failed to progress past the group stages on each occasion, landing Ireland twice, and being in Band A would result in avoiding heavyweight opponents such as them, South Africa, France and New Zealand.

Facing the All Blacks in the second of four Tests is the most attractive match on the calendar. Scotland have never overcome Kiwi opposition, but New Zealand’s performances in the recent Rugby Championship showed a level of frailty, losing to both Argentina and the Springboks.

Challenging year for Scotland

Townsend spent the past week in Austria as part of his new 30-day job-share with Red Bull. His arrangement with the drinks firm, who have recently invested in rugby with the purchase of Newcastle, drew fresh criticism for the long-serving head coach. His contract was renewed last month until the end of the 2027 World Cup and that will take him to a decade at the helm of Scottish rugby.

The November matches give Townsend a chance to shift the focus back to rugby matters. This year has been challenging at times for Scotland, only winning two of their Six Nations matches against Italy and Wales to finish a distant fourth. A heavily-depleted squad toured the Pacific during the summer and defeated Maori All Blacks and Samoa, but lost to Fiji in what was a damaging result for the world rankings. The Fijians are ninth on 81.16 points.

Townsend was without 12 players at various stages of the summer due to their British and Irish Lions involvement. Pierre Schoeman, Scott Cummings, Finn Russell, Huw Jones, Sione Tuipulotu, Duhan van der Merwe and Blair Kinghorn were originally called into the squad, while Ewan Ashman, Rory Sutherland, Gregor Brown, Ben White and Darcy Graham were all added during the tour of Australia. The vast majority will be included in Tuesday’s announcement.

Prop Zander Fagerson was also part of the Lions set-up, only to be denied by injury. He has not played this season and remains a major doubt for Scotland’s November matches after hurting his knee while rehabbing a calf tear.

There are also injury concerns over centre Huw Jones, who recently had surgery on his Achilles and isn’t expected to be available. Fellow Glasgow Warriors players Rory Darge (flanker) and Jack Dempsey (No 8) have also been nursing knocks and are battling to be fully fit for Scotland duty. Dempsey may play a part for Glasgow on Friday against Bulls after a groin complaint, but Darge - a Scotland co-captain - has a more concerning knee issue.

Over at Edinburgh, Townsend will hope wingers Darcy Graham (knee) and Duhan van der Merwe (heel) are fully fit after taking knocks in Friday night’s big win over Benetton. Their back-rower Ben Muncaster is a doubt for the squad, although the emergence of Liam McConnell this season could propel him into the international set-up for the first time. Summer signing Dylan Richardson has been playing in the back-row and offers versatility given he can also cover at hooker.

Scotland v USA outside of Test window

Key players based outside of Scotland such as Bath stand-off Russell, Toulon scrum-half White and Toulouse full-back Kinghorn all played at the weekend and barring any last-minute injury concerns will play a big part for Scotland. Townsend will also be monitoring the progress of other Scottish players in France, such as Montpellier duo Ali Price and Alex Masibaka, Perpigan’s Jamie Ritchie, Bayonne’s Ewan Johnson and Dave Cherry, who is now at Vannes.

The USA match falls outside the Test window, meaning that Scottish-based players such as Glasgow Warriors’ in-form utility back Jamie Dobie should play a big part. Edinburgh’s Ben Healy could also be included at fly-half as he has started the season as their 10.

Speaking last week, Townsend intimated that there would not be wholesale changes to the tried and trusted pool of players.

“I think it is going to be difficult for players to break into the squad this November that haven't been with us before, because there's not been many games,” said Townsend. “We take a good look at what players are doing in training, especially players in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the feedback we've heard from coaches, and there might be one or two that have got opportunities within that, but those guys that were on a summer tour, some of them grabbed their opportunity.

“Some of them started the season really well, but we'll take a lot from that summer tour, just because there's not been as many games, and we know we've got really good depth. We obviously took a younger squad out to New Zealand and Fiji because of the amount of Lions that were in Australia the year before. We had a young squad in the Americas, so we have got a lot of players to pick from, and it's getting down to that 40 to 45.”