Scotland’s Grant Gilchrist: I’m desperate to put wrongs right next time against France

Grant Gilchrist has begged Gregor Townsend to send him back out to face France next weekend as he seeks to make amends for his part in Scotland’s horror show in Nice.

Scotland's Grant Gilchrist chases down the ball against France last weekend. Pic: SNS

The Edinburgh lock was part of the Dark Blues line-up humiliated on the Riviera by Les Bleus’ crushing five-try victory.

The 32-3 drubbing was a disastrous start to the Scots’ World Cup preparations and comes less than a month before they jet out to Japan.

Head coach Townsend, who names his final 31-man squad on September 3, has already announced there will be changes made to his XV when France make the return trip to Edinburgh next Saturday as he runs the rule over his next batch of contenders.

However, Gilchrist hopes he will be given a second chance against Jacques Brunel’s side at Murrayfield.

“I can only speak for myself, but I would love to go out and right some wrongs next weekend,” Gilchrist said.

“The chances are we’ll make a lot of changes, but I’d be desperate to get back out there and I know the 23 guys who played on Saturday night will feel exactly the same.

“We let ourselves down and want desperately to have an opportunity to put that right.

“We represent a big group. The guys who played in Nice felt we let down the wider squad.

“We’ve all been working really hard. We were the lucky ones to go out there and get a chance to pull on the jersey and represent the group. But we let ourselves down.

“The 23 who play next week will be desperate to put that right. I fully believe we can do it. We’ve shown we can do it in the past. We just need to learn these lessons and turn it around.”

Townsend has already cut four players from a 44-man pre-tournament training squad and another nine will be let go in between the final two warm-up clashes against Georgia.

Gilchrist is keeping his fingers crossed that Townsend will not write off some hopefuls on the back of what he saw at the Allianz Riviera alone.

“Gregor definitely will be making decisions that will count against some people,” he added, “but he has been looking at us for the last six weeks. I think it’s fair to say that he won’t judge us on one performance. He’ll judge us over the whole piece.”