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May 14, 2006

John plays down cap chances

Posted by Editor on May 14, 2006 10:17 AM | 2 comments | Print | E-mail author

John Beattie has played down his chances of making his full Scotland debut in South Africa
Glasgow's John Beattie has played down his chances of making his Test debut against the Springboks next month.

John produced another brilliant display at Firhill to inspire Glasgow to a 17-10 victory over Llanelli on Friday that kept their Heineken Cup qualification dream alive.

But John says he should not be treated as the heir to Simon Taylor who has been ruled out of the South African tour because of knee ligament damage.

Warriors coach Sean Lineen told the Sunday Mail said: "Johnny is a special talent and will go far.

"His recent performances have been marvellous and he has displaced squad captain Jon Petrie from the No.8 slot."

John, however, shrugged off the praise and said: "I'm not reading too much into the back row positional situation at Glasgow.

"They are just trying various combinations for next season.

"I am not even thinking about Scotland. All I'm focusing on is helping Glasgow beat Connacht in the final Celtic League game - then the Under-21 World Cup in France.

"It's my last year in age-group rugby and I aim to go out on a high."

To earn a ticket to the Heineken Cup, Glasgow must win in Galway on Friday and hope the Borders lose to Newport the same night.

John said: "Beating Llanelli was a huge confidence boost and the Reivers' heavy defeat by Ulster gave us an extra sense of purpose.

"Connacht will not be a cakewalk even though they are bottom of the table.

"Our defence has been pretty solid, but we need to work on protecting the ball when we have it."

Sean said: "It was a case of getting the monkey off our backs with any kind of victory, but we made it harder for ourselves than it ought to have been. The most encouraging thing was seeing the depth of team spirit when Llanelli were pressing hard in the dying minutes.

"We are not counting any chickens. All this result has done is keep us in the running for another couple of weeks and put some pressure on the Borders.

"All we can do at this end is make sure we perform against Connacht, but my gut feeling is that the Reivers will beat the Dragons."

Comments
Posted by jenni b on May 15, 2006 01:22 PM | Reply to this comment

John may not be thinking about it but there are those of us who are very much looking forward to the day when he gets the chance to show what he can do on the field for Scotland!! I have nothing against Taylor, apart his tendancy to suffer disciplinary lapses at key moments, but (in my opinion and I know a lot of people will disagree!) he's never lived up to the 'world-class number 8' hype that was attached to him so early in his career. Really hope John has the opportunity to play in the summer and show the world just how good a player Scotland and Glasgow have on their hands!

Posted by vicki on May 16, 2006 09:46 AM | Reply to this comment

I certainly don't disagree with that opinion about Taylor! I think there will be some difficult choices to make about which back-row players go on which tour - it's one area where there are plenty of options, with players such as Hogg, White, Donnie, JB, Barclay, JP all pushing to earn their place in the squad.

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