Pyrgos leads Scots against Ireland

Vern Cotter has named Henry Pyrgos as captain for Scotland’s World Cup warm-up match against Ireland this Saturday.

SCOTLAND head coach Vern Cotter has named a 25-man squad to face Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin this Saturday in the first stage of a four Test-match build-up to next month’s World Cup.

Forwards: John Barclay, Hugh Blake, Fraser Brown, Blair Cowan, Mike Cusack, David Denton, Allan Dell, Grant Gilchrist, Ryan Grant, Jim Hamilton, Rob Harley, Stuart McInally, Gordon Reid, Jon Welsh.

“I don’t know about surprised”, said Pyrgos.

The 26-year-old, who said being named captain marked the “proudest day of my life”, will look to fellow senior players to “step up” but reserve extra time to prepare those still new to global rugby.

“If you do that you are putting yourself in a great position to get a shirt at the World Cup”.

After playing Ireland, Scotland face Six Nations rivals Italy and France before naming their 31-man final squad for the World Cup.

It’s Scotland’s first of four warm-up matches, with two further tests against Italy and one against France still to come.

The 22 players not involved against Ireland on Saturday will continue training at Murrayfield.