Blade is a shoo-in for Scotland

WITHIN weeks of The Rugby Paper revealing Scotland’s interest in claiming Blade Thomson, below, the Scarlets’ Kiwi flanker has made it clear he will be more than happy to seize the chance provided by his Scottish grandparents.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it,” he says. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If it happens, it happens.”

Injury-permitting, Thomson will surely be capped, conceivably as early as November when the Scots kick-off their autumn fixtures with a strange one, against Wales in Cardiff. The infinitely more important Six Nations business takes place at Murrayfield in the New Year.