Argentina v Scotland: Winning start would be the morale-booster Scottish rugby needs right now

If ever Scottish rugby needed a morale-boosting result it is now.

Gregor Townsend’s side return to Test action for the first time since a Six Nations campaign which began promisingly but ended amid defeat and acrimony in Dublin and a sense that progress has been stunted. More worryingly, the under-20s, the national team’s wellspring, have just lost their 12th game in a row.

Against this backdrop Townsend takes his squad to Jujuy to play Argentina in the first match of a three-Test series. It is a tough schedule, played out in remote venues in the north-west of the country where the tourists can expect a hot reception.

Both Townsend and his boss, Mark Dodson, have spoken about this being the start of preparations for next year’s Rugby World Cup but Scotland find themselves in a strange situation. They travelled to Argentina without Stuart Hogg and Finn Russell, the two players who have done more than any others to revitalise the national side over the last decade.

The thought of playing a Test match without either is an alien one but Townsend must also look to the future.

Hogg turned 30 the other week and Russell will reach that milestone in September but neither looks ready to be pensioned off quite yet. Both still play at the pinnacle of the club game and, all being well, you would expect them to be mainstays of the national side in France next autumn.

With Chris Harris also rested for this tour and Hamish Watson out of the first Test with injury, Scotland are taking on Argentina without four of their Test Lions.

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