Hawick’s Darcy Graham to start for Scotland national rugby team for first time since November v France
Hawick’s Darcy Graham is being given his first start for the Scotland national rugby team for almost four months against France this coming Saturday.
The 28-year-old returns to his once-automatic starting place on the Scots’ right wing for round four of this year’s Six Nations at home to the French at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium, with Kyle Steyn – occupant of that berth for their 18-15 opening-round loss away to Italy on Saturday, February 7, and the back-to-back wins that followed the two Saturdays after, by 31-20 hosting England and 26-23 in Wales respectively – switches to the opposite side of the pitch.
That will be the Edinburgh winger’s first start for Scotland since he hit his half-century of international caps for a 33-24 loss hosting Argentina at Murrayfield back in mid-November, going on to play for all 80 minutes of their first defeat at home to the Pumas for 16 years.
Scotland’s No 14 jersey went to Kyle Rowe for their 56-0 autumn test win against Tonga a week after that and to his Glasgow Warriors teammate Steyn, 32, for all three of their games since, with the South African putting in full 80-minute shifts and Graham, now on 53 caps, limited to appearances as replacement No 23 lasting 31 minutes in Rome, 22 minutes for their Calcutta Cup win versus England and 26 minutes in Cardiff.
Last month’s win against the Welsh for head coach Gregor Townsend’s team also yielded his first international try since a hat-trick against the USA at home at the start of November, taking him back level with Edinburgh teammate Duhan van der Merwe at the top of Scotland’s all-time try-scoring leaderboard, both being on 35.
Graham is one of two fellow Borderers in Townsend’s match-day squad for Saturday, captained by inside-centre Sione Tuipulotu, the other being former Hawick and Gala prop Rory Sutherland, now at Glasgow Warriors, named as a replacement.
Currently on 46 caps, that’s the 33-year-old’s first selection of this championship and, if brought on, it will be his first senior Scotland appearance since he started against Tonga in November.
Graham, Steyn and Tuipulotu’s fellow backs are Blair Kinghorn, Huw Jones, Finn Russell and Ben White.
Up front are Pierre Schoeman, George Turner, D’Arcy Rae, Gregor Brown, Scott Cummings, Matt Fagerson, ex-Southern Knight Rory Darge and Jack Dempsey.
Sitting alongside Sutherland on the substitutes’ bench will be Ewan Ashman, Zander Fagerson, Grant Gilchrist, Freddy Douglas, Josh Baylis, George Horne and Tom Jordan.
Kick-off versus head coach Fabien Galthie’s visitors is at 2.10pm and that match can be seen live on BBC One.
A first win against the French since 2023, and first in the Six Nations since 2021, could see second-placed Scotland – currently four points behind them, on 11 to their visitors’ 15 – replace them at the top of the table, but a bonus-point win the other way would secure back-to-back titles for the visitors.
France have won five of the two teams’ last six meetings – by 35-16 last year, 30-27 in August 2023 and 32-21 six months earlier at home and by 20-16 in 2024 in Edinburgh.
Looking ahead to Saturday’s match, No 11 Steyn said: “It is huge and we haven’t shied away from that.
“We know the challenge that’s coming this week and the kind of machine that is French rugby at the moment.
“Whenever we’ve come up against these guys, we’ve had some really good games, some really fun clashes, some really big clashes, so I’m just looking forward to another one of them.
“It’s two teams that love to play rugby. They are often really fatiguing games because you’ve got two teams that are trying to have a crack.
“Both teams will make errors and we obviously know how lethal they are from transition, so you’ve got to try not to make those errors.
“At the same time, they’ve got a big juggernaut up front that needs to move and we’re relishing the chance to have a go against them and try and make them defend.
“You look forward to these games – they’re always so much fun.
“Test matches can be so different. When you play an Ireland or other teams like that, it just seems like a gridlock game the whole week, but this is a game where you just know it’s going to be fun from one to 80.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s going to flow and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”