Jamie Ritchie also makes his debut in the back row with Lewis Carmichael and Adam Hastings set to win their first caps off the bench. Thirty two years after his father Gavin appeared on the scene, a new Hastings is about to join the pantheon of Scotland Test players.
There is only one survivor from Scotland’s last game in the Six Nations in Rome – Fraser Brown. There’d have been none at all had Stuart McInally, the tour captain, not succumbed to injury. This, of course, is a tour of discovery for Townsend, an opportunity against Canada and United States to look at new players and try out new combinations ahead of the more exacting third Test of the trip against Argentina in Resistencia.
“Given that we’ve left quite a few of the boys at home, there are opportunities for the guys we have here,” said Townsend.
“Take Chris (Harris) for instance. We were impressed with him leading up to that Welsh game, but we didn’t get things right in Wales and it started with me, with the selection and with our approach to that game. Chris, through no fault of his own, didn’t have his best game.
“There were a few times when he got hospital passes. What he has done since then is go back to Newcastle and find ways to get on the ball more. He was mainly a defensive player up to that point, but for the last half of the season we have seen him attacking more and he’s scored a couple of cracking tries.