Gregor Townsend: Scotland squad chosen with Rugby World Cup in mind
- Published
Gregor Townsend has 13 Test matches before next year's World Cup
Every one of Scotland's 40-man autumn Test squad has a "very good chance" of playing in the World Cup, says head coach Gregor Townsend.
Townsend has selected three uncapped players for the four-Test series.
The Scots start against Wales in Cardiff on 3 November and host Fiji, South Africa and Argentina in the following three Saturdays.
"Everyone in this squad can play in the World Cup. And there's a few outside the squad as well," said Townsend.
"It's great preparation for tournaments like the World Cup, in that you play four games in four weeks and one of those you're going to play two games in four days.
"There's twin challenges - the challenge of grabbing your opportunity to play for Scotland now and putting yourself in a better place to play the next game, but we'll also talk about the World Cup.
"If you play well in this period and the Six Nations, you're going to have a very good chance of going to Japan."
The nine non-Scotland-based players in the squad will be unavailable for the opener in Cardiff as the match falls outside the international window.
Townsend says it is unlikely that any player will start all four matches.
"We have competition in a number of positions, more positions than in the past," said the head coach.
"Previously, I don't think we would have been thinking stand off is a position where we have a lot of competition but Adam Hastings has played very well this year for Glasgow. And he grabbed his opportunity for Scotland against Argentina in the summer.
"Finn Russell, obviously, has been our 10 for the last few years and is playing really well for Racing. A couple of weeks ago we had two Scottish 10s starting for English clubs in the same weekend in Duncan Weir [Worcester] and James Lang [Harlequins]."
Scotland face four pool games in 21 days at the Rugby World Cup next autumn