Spotlight falls on Scotland's new captain

Gregor Townsend will lead Scotland in their opening tour match, against Wanganui, at a floodlit Cooks Park tomorrow. The game will provide a first experience of captaincy at this level for the talented Northampton stand-off.

Townsend, who captained Scottish Schools in 1990/91 and was also vice- captain of Scotland during the Five Nations Championship, is paired with the Bath scrum-half, Andy Nicol.

Five players - the full-back Stuart Lang, hooker Graham Ellis, prop Barry Stewart, lock Scott Murray and flanker Nick Broughton - will be making tour debuts. The forwards will be led by the veteran lock, Damian Cronin, who is on his third tour to New Zealand.

The management, while not wanting to create a midweek side too early in the tour, have nevertheless rested most of the big guns in the pack until the second tour game against Northland at Whangerei.

SCOTLAND XV (v Wanganui, tomorrow): S Lang (Heriot's FP); C Joiner (Melrose), G Shiel (Melrose), I Jardine (Stirling County), D Stark (Boroughmuir); G Townsend (Northampton, capt), A Nicol (Bath); D Hilton (Bath), G Ellis (Currie), B Stewart (Edinburgh Academicals), D Cronin (Bourges), S Murray (Edinburgh Academicals), P Walton (Newcastle), E Peters (Bath), N Broughton (Melrose). Replacements: K Logan (Stirling County), R Eriksson (London Scottish), G Armstrong (Newcastle), B Renwick (Hawick), T Smith (Watsonians), K McKenzie (Stirling County).