For the first time in 3½ years, Chris Paterson is to start a game at fly half when Scotland open their World Cup warm-up campaign against Ireland at Murrayfield on Saturday. It represents a bold climbdown by Frank Hadden, the Scotland coach, who throughout most of his club and national career has consistently refused to start the player in the position that almost everybody else in the country believes to be Paterson’s best.

To be fair to Hadden, his reluctance to give Paterson the No 10 shirt has been as much a testimony to the player’s flexibility and flair as to any feeling that he is not up to the job. Most of the time Hadden has had experienced, consistent operators such as Duncan Hodge, Gordon Ross and more recently Dan Parks to hold down the pivot role, while desperately short of exciting runners out wide. Now the position is reversed, and with a flood of back three talent, the time has come to slot Paterson back into a more central role.

It is a position Paterson grabbed with aplomb during the last World Cup, but held for only 3½ matches in the following Six Nations Championship, before being switched to full back for Scotland and to the wing for Edinburgh. Before then he had done enough to convince most people that fly half was his natural role, and Hadden certainly has cause to be grateful for his skills there since it was with Paterson in that role that Edinburgh had their best season in 2003-04, reaching the Celtic Cup final and Heineken Cup quarter-final.

Moving Paterson back to fly half is the most obvious and daring of the experiments in the team that will face Ireland. Hadden has stuck to his promise to create innovative units with tried and tested players. That means restoring Jason White and Mike Blair to the team after lengthy injuries that helped contribute to Hadden’s view that he had been forced to try his new players during the RBS Six Nations Championship and does not now need to look outside the capped fraternity. The only new face is Fergus Thomson, who comes on to the bench as cover for the hooker position with both Dougie Hall and Scott Lawson injured.

However, the team line-up did catch at least one player by surprise with Rory Lamont confessing yesterday that he was so sure that he would not be in the 22, far less the starting 15, that he had not brought enough kit for the week. The Sale Sharks wing had to get permission to miss the team bus to race home and collect the extra gear.

“I think I must be swaying the coaches’ opinions,” Lamont said. “I certainly have a chance here. It is a huge opportunity, almost two years since my last start in a Scotland shirt, and I am determined to take my chance.”

It is not a team designed for clever ball play, with the emphasis unashamedly on size and power. Hadden is fielding the biggest front five Scotland have ever assembled, ranging from Ross Ford – making his second consecutive start at hooker – at 16st to Jim Hamilton at almost 20st. The unit weighs in at almost 90st and there is plenty of power behind them with the restoration of the back row that dominated the Six Nations two seasons ago before being split up by injuries.

If that is true of the forwards, it is even more true of the backs with Andy Henderson and Rob Dewey forming a muscular centre partnership with the Lamont brothers, Rory and Sean, ready to wreak havoc if they can punch through to create the gaps.

How much space they get will be up to Blair at scrum half and Paterson at fly half. “I just want to get out and play rugby,” Paterson said. “Frank [Hadden] had told me I would be training through the summer at No 10. I had enough experience to be able to slot in at full back or wing if needed. There was nothing else to it. It was a case of getting as much experience in the role as possible but I don’t approach it any differently to playing anywhere else. I was always reasonably involved in the game anyway, so it is no different for me.

“It is not a case of saying this is the position I have always wanted to play, I just get on with it. I have always said I am happy to play wherever I can me most use. It is other people who have made a big deal of it.”

Squads

England (to play France at Twickenham on Saturday): N Abendanon (Bath); P Sackey (London Wasps), J Noon (Newcastle Falcons), M Catt (London Irish, captain), J Lewsey (London Wasps); O Barkley (Bath), S Perry (Bristol); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), M Regan (Bristol), M Stevens (Bath), S Shaw (London Wasps), B Kay (Leicester), J Haskell (London Wasps), L Moody (Leicester), L Dallaglio (London Wasps). Replacements: L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (London Wasps), M Corry (Leicester), J Worsley (London Wasps), A Gomarsall (Harlequins), J Wilkinson (Newcastle Falcons), D Cipriani (London Wasps).

France: Backs: C Poîtrenaud (Toulouse), V Clerc (Toulouse), C Heymans (Toulouse), A Rougerie (Clermont Auvergne), D Marty (Perpignan), Y Jauzion (Toulouse), D Skrela (Stade Français), F Michalak (Natal Sharks), J-B Elissalde (Toulouse), P Mignoni (Clermont Auvergne). Forwards: O Milloud (Bourgoin), P de Villiers (Stade Francais), J-B Poux (Toulouse), R Ibañez (London Wasps, captain), D Szarzewski (Stade Français), F Pelous (Toulouse), J Thion (Biarritz), S Chabal (Sale Sharks), J Bonnaire (Clermont Auvergne), S Betsen (Biarritz), R Martin (Stade Français), Y Nyanga (Toulouse).

Scotland (to play Ireland at Murrayfield on Saturday): R Lamont (Sale Sharks); S Lamont (Northampton), R Dewey (Ulster), A Henderson (Glasgow), S Webster (Edinburgh); C Paterson (Gloucester), M Blair (Edinburgh); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Glasgow), E Murray (Northampton), N Hines (Perpignan), J Hamilton (Leicester), J White (Sale Sharks, captain), A Hogg (Edinburgh), S Taylor (Stade Français). Replacements: F Thomson (Glasgow), C Smith (Edinburgh), S MacLeod (Llanelli Scarlets), K Brown (Glasgow), C Cusiter (Perpignan), D Parks (Glasgow), H Southwell (Edinburgh).

Ireland: G Murphy (Leicester); B Carney (Munster), B O’Driscoll (Leinster, captain), G Duffy (Connacht), T Bowe (Ulster); P Wallace (Ulster), I Boss (Ulster); B Young (Ulster), J Flannery (Munster), S Best (Ulster), M O’Kelly (Leinster), P O’Connell (Munster), N Best (Ulster), S Ferris (Ulster), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: R Best (Ulster), J Hayes (Munster), A Quinlan (Munster), K Gleeson (Leinster), O Reddan (London Wasps), R O’Gara (Munster), S Horgan (Leinster).

Italy World Cup squad: Backs: D Bortolussi (Montpellier), E Galon (Overmach Parma), P Canavasio (Castres), K Robertson (Viadana), M Stanojevic (Bristol), Mirco Bergamasco (Stade Français), G Canale (Clermont Auvergne), A Masi (Biarritz), M Pratichetti (Calvisano), R de Marigny (Calvisano), R Pez (Bayonne), P Griffen (Calvisano), A Troncon (Clermont Auvergne). Forwards: M Aguero (Viadana), M Castrogiovanni (Leicester), A lo Cicero (L’Aquila), S Perugini (Toulouse), C Festuccia (Gran Parma), L Ghiraldini (Calvisano), F Ongaro (Saracens), V Bernabo (Calvisano), M Bortolami (Gloucester, captain), C del Fava (Bourgoin), S Dellape (Biarritz), R Barbieri (Overmach Parma), Mauro Bergamasco (Stade Français), S Parisse (Stade Français), J Sole (Viadana), M Vosawai (Overmach Parma), A Zanni (Calvisano).