Van der Merwe returns from Scotland wilderness with a point to prove

Duhan van der Merwe is back.

A little chastened, you suspect, by his omission in the opening rounds of the Six Nations – not to mention being left out for the All Blacks Test in the autumn – and more than a little determined to make amends for lost time and for all the tries he might have scored. Against England, of course.

In putting some of the band back together – Blair Kinghorn also returning to 15 – Gregor Townsend’s intentions are pretty clear.

Wales are shipping so many tries that Van der Merwe must be licking his lips in anticipation.

This game, more than any other game, looks like it’s made for what he has to offer. What’s that? A nose for a try like no player who has ever played for Scotland before.

He hasn’t started in a big Test match since France last March. He wasn’t in the 23 for the marquee game in the autumn against the All Blacks and was only on the bench for the other box office encounter against Argentina.

The Six Nations has passed him by. This has been the toughest period of his career.

What has ailed the big man? Injury, to begin with. Then, a lack of confidence. Then, a Lions tour that saw him score more tries than anybody else while never threatening to make it into the Test squad, as he did in 2021.

After that, more injury and more shortage of belief. Rivals sped past him – Kyle Steyn and Jamie Dobie.

The malaise at Edinburgh has been a problem. Not just for him but for Darcy Graham, too.

You would never say he was a forgotten man, but his return to the team to face Wales on Saturday was a minor surprise. It makes perfect sense, but not many expected it.

For Scotland, a fresh, focused and eager to please Van der Merwe is surely a good thing. For Wales, probably not so much.

He’s Scotland’s record try-scorer with 35 in 52 games; a 6ft 5in curiosity.

In the unforgiving terrain of Test rugby he has scored 0.67 tries per international which, frankly, is bordering on the obscene.

He has scored seven Six Nations tries against England, more than anybody else until Huw Jones overtook him last weekend.

He scores at a faster rate in Test rugby than he does in club rugby, which goes back, in part, to the way Edinburgh play and, in other part, to the way Scotland play.

Finn Russell, and his ability to manipulate defences before putting the ball in Van der Merwe’s hands, has been the making of the wing. Offloads and cross-kicks, Russell has laid them on a plate for him. Van der Merwe is a different beast when Russell is calling the shots.

Richard Cockerill, the coach who brought him to Edinburgh in the first place, has called him a freak, which he is.

Nobody could legitimately claim that Van der Merwe, for all his power and pace and lethal finishing ability, is the complete rugby player. Absolutely, he is not.

He may have come a long way since fetching-up at Edinburgh and failing his medical.

He has progressed thrillingly beyond the point where Cockerill used to close his eyes when the ball was in the air anywhere near him for fear that he’d drop it.

He’s flawed, of course. But the upside? Historic amounts of it. Tries by the bucket load – easy run-ins and monstrous solo runs.

Give him a yard of grass and, as an opposition, best start saying your prayers.

His appearances at the Principality have seen the worst and the best of him.

In 2022, in what was a dismal Scotland defeat, the abiding image of him was a negative one, a man coughing up ball and looking a bit weak amid a battle.

Two years later, he was a total menace.

Russell the creator, Van der Merwe the finisher, from inside the Wales 22 for the first and from a mile out for the second, an arcing run that Wales saw coming but could do nothing to stop.

They’ll see him again on Saturday. Some of those Welsh players might see him in their nightmares before Saturday.

Van der Merwe might see this is a second chapter in his Scotland’s story, one that some felt might have been slipping away from him amid the excellence of Steyn and Dobie.