Ben White injury timeline revealed as Scotland scrum-half pencilled in for World Cup warm-up

Scotland's Ben White looks dejected as he is substituted off with an ankle injury during the match against France at Murrayfield. (Photo by Ross Parker / SNS Group)

Gregor Townsend is hopeful Ben White will be fit to play against Georgia in Scotland’s final warm-up match for the Rugby World Cup as he allayed fears that the first-choice scrum-half could miss the tournament.

White looked in some discomfort as he limped up after half-an-hour of last weekend’s win over France at Murrayfield, having damaged his ankle as he went to ground following a high tackle by French wing Louis Bielle-Biarrey. White punched the bench in frustration and the affected area was heavily bandaged. The former London Irish player hurt the same ankle towards the end of last season and will see a specialist on Monday but Townsend thinks he will recover in time to face the Georgians at Murrayfield on August 26, and is set to be included in the Scotland coach’s 33-man squad for the World Cup which will be named on Wednesday.

“I believe he’ll have a good chance of playing against Georgia if he comes back like we think he would,” said Townsend. “There was a lot of precaution with it being the area he injured at the end of the season, but initial scans showed that there wasn’t too much damage there, and we’ll have that meeting on Monday just to test it out. But we think that’s just for our knowledge, that he’ll be OK to be announced in that squad if he makes selection, and from that Monday onwards he’ll have 10, 11 days before we play Georgia. And that’s still another two weeks before we play South Africa [in the World Cup opener]. We don’t see it being a longer injury than that. I think if it was, then really that would keep him out most of the pool stages. We don’t believe it will be as severe as that.”

White will not be involved in this Saturday’s rematch with France in Saint-Etienne, with Ali Price taking the No 9 jersey and George Horne once again providing cover on the bench. Horne replaced White last weekend and did his World Cup selection chances no harm with an energetic performance. Now it’s Price’s chance to reinforce his credentials. “He gets the opportunity to start again, like he did against Italy,” Townsend said. “And George Horne too did really well off the bench last week. So we’ve got two very experienced scrum-halves - both have been around our group for a while now. Ali has obviously had a lot of caps with Finn [Russell], so he gets to build on that relationship from the start - it’s been a while since he’s done that.”

Townsend is expected to take three scrum-halves to the World Cup, with Jamie Dobie likely to miss out. The coach has made six changes for the match in Saint-Etienne. Darcy Graham has been rested after three tries in the opening two warm-ups and his place on the right wing is taken by Kyle Steyn. There are four changes in the pack, with George Turner coming in for Ewan Ashman at hooker, WP Nel deputising for the suspended Zander Fagerson at tighthead prop and Jamie Ritchie and Rory Darge replacing Matt Fagerson and Hamish Watson in the wing forward positions. Ritchie takes back the captaincy from Russell after missing the Italy and France games with a calf strain.