Gregor Townsend on why he omitted Johnny Matthews from Scotland squad

Gregor Townsend says a desire to create more competition for the Scotland number two jersey is the reason for the surprise omission of in-form Glasgow Warriors hooker Johnny Matthews from the summer tour squad.

Matthews has played a key role in Warriors’ run to the URC semi-finals and has scored 17 tries in his last 25 matches.

However, Townsend has elected to go with the Edinburgh duo Ewan Ashman and Patrick Harrison and Northampton’s Robbie Smith for the matches against Canada, USA, Chile and Uruguay.

“I think with Johnny and Dave Cherry, they’ve been in our environment and we feel with where we are with hookers, we want to give an opportunity to younger players to really put their hands up for selection in the future,” Townsend told the BBC Scotland Rugby Podcast.

“This gives us an opportunity to see three of our younger hookers or players that are coming through in that position.

“On a tour where Ewan Ashman will be the leading hooker, he’s played very well for Edinburgh this year, so yes we could have taken Johnny, we could have taken Dave, but we decided to look at players that haven’t been involved in our environment.

“[It gives us] more depth in opposition and Johnny and Dave will be very much in the mix when we get to the November Tests.

“Hopefully they’ll be competing with one, two or three new hookers that have come through on tour and we still have a couple of hookers that are playing good rugby.

“Angus Fraser and Gregor Hiddleston have played for Glasgow this year so we know it’s a position that players haven’t played much for Scotland but are competing hard to get that opportunity.”