Scotland yesterday bowed to the inevitable and called Kyle Traynor, the Edinburgh prop, into the squad that assembles in St Andrews this morning to prepare for the first of their autumn internationals, when Fiji head for Murrayfield.

Traynor comes in as cover for Alasdair Dickinson, the Gloucester prop, who damaged his shoulder a week earlier lifting in a lineout.

For now, Scotland are saying that the extra prop is only a precaution, but Andy Robinson, the national head coach, is determined to give his starting line-up as much opportunity as possible to train together, so the doubts over Dickinson will probably hand the starting spot to Allan Jacobsen, of Edinburgh, even though Traynor has often started ahead of him.

Though the decision was expected, Traynor was by no means the only choice open to Robinson, with John Welsh having again proved over the weekend just what an exciting prospect he is with another demolition job during Glasgow’s rain-sodden 9-9 draw away to the Ospreys.

“He has so much potential,” Sean Lineen, the Glasgow head coach, said of his young protégé. “He has a tremendous attitude. He has a way to go yet, but by the nature of the Scottish game, we are not over-endowed with loosehead props, so his name will come up. It is a fantastic sense of personal satisfaction when you see a player coming through like that. He has the raw material for sure.”

Welsh’s performance was one of the few bright spots to emerge from the dismal game at Swansea where a deluge that hit the stadium just before kick-off and did not let up for the rest of the night, made any attempt to play rugby just about impossible. The Welsh region were without ten players who had been called up for their international squad, but the weather was so bad that in the end Lineen was satisfied with the draw that temporarily moved his side up to second in the table.

Though the opening weeks of the season have been tough with injuries and sickness a regular problem, Lineen feels that the side has laid the groundwork for an assault on the end- of-season play-off places, and sees no reason why hopes should not be soaring by the time they get there.

“Yes, expectations are high but who created that? We did,” Lineen said. “We push each other on and I’m really excited about what we can do. Once everyone has had a few games together and we are in the groove, you will see an even better Glasgow team. We have not clicked yet, there has not been time for enough combinations to be in place.”

Not that he feels disheartened by the weekend game either. “We could have won it,” he said. “John Barclay was penalised in front of their posts but there was no way he hung on to the ball, it was the Ospreys who killed it. It should have been a penalty to us.

“We had a scrum on their line and won a penalty [that Dan Parks kicked to level the scores] but we looked at taking another scrum and going for the penalty try. But it shows where we are at the moment that the players did not feel comfortable with the ref. It was a mature decision, one that I back all the way. We needed to get points, but we had them on toast in the scrum.”