Allan Massie: Binning of Brown and Barclay a surprise

At LEAST 50 players still active in the game have played international rugby for Scotland in the last two or three years. Even given that a match-day squad now consists of 23 players, and given the proliferation of international matches and summer tours when, for one reason or another, some have been absent, that’s a sizeable number. It may indeed explain why we have had so little success. Admittedly the question which comes first – a settled team or a winning one – is like the old chicken-and-egg question, but there’s undoubtedly a close relation between them.