Decoy pass declared legal as Townsend looks to his backs to keep Georgian pack on move

SCOTLAND will continue to deploy the attacking move which had Chris Paterson careering towards his 23rd Test try against Romania on Saturday, only to be halted by the referee, after being told by the IRB that the official had got it wrong.

English referee Dave Pearson blew up to halt the move just as Paterson was taking Max Evans’ pass and preparing for a clear 15-metre run to the posts, which would have taken the full-back to within one try of the Scottish record jointly held by Ian Smith and Tony Stanger. Pearson believed the move, involving a pass delivered behind a decoy runner, to be a case of obstruction caused by players crossing.

Andy Robinson sought a meeting with Paddy O’Brien, the IRB’s Head of Refereeing, to clarify this and Scotland assistant coach Gregor Townsend confirmed yesterday that O’Brien agreed with them that the move was perfectly fine and Paterson should have been allowed to score the try.

It is one of several moves Townsend has worked on with the Scottish backs and which he hopes will prove more fruitful today when Scotland take on Georgia in the Rugby Park Stadium in Invercargill. The focus pre-match has been on the clash of two formidable packs and the fear, heightened by the Scottish forwards’ display in the tight phases on Saturday, that the Scots could struggle to bring any fluency to their game if unable to control the Georgian pack, and their powerful openside flanker Mamuka Gorgodze in particular.

But the Scottish backs’ ability to escape the clutches of their Georgian counterparts will be more important today than some might believe. Townsend was cool with questions about the weather yesterday, as the wind and rain battered the stadium, insisting that it would not alter their plans to play a high-tempo, expansive game, but that is because the forecast is not so severe for tonight in Invercargill – less strong wind with light rain at some point, perhaps – and Dan Parks at stand-off will be bidding to use his kicking talents to pen the Georgians in their own half.

Townsend said: “We believe we can still move around this Georgian team in any sort of weather. We just have to be smart. But we know we have to move the ball. We feel we get better the more phases we play – that showed in the Six Nations when we scored tries after five, six phases – but you’ve got to do a lot of jobs within those phases.

“If it does become a forward battle then our players have got to match that. This is a huge challenge as Georgia will be one of the strongest packs any team will come up against. But our players are up for that.”

Hooker Scott Lawson needed treatment for a tight calf muscle after yesterday’s final training run but Townsend expects him to be fit to start, with Ross Ford and Dougie Hall on stand-by if he fails to make it. There is little doubt that Scotland need fit front rows today as they bid to step up their performance level and move on to Wellington with hopes of reaching the quarter-finals still firmly intact.