Frank Hadden, Scotland's coach, called on World Cup organisers to increase squad sizes for future tournaments after announcing his 30-man squad yesterday.

After his official confirmation of a party, the make-up of which had been widely leaked a day earlier, he suggested lessons be learned from Europe's top club tournament that has, in recent years, changed its rules to allow for larger squads.

"It took the Heineken guys time to realise that if the product was to be enhanced they had to do that," he said.

With Simon Danielli currently in Ireland, Hadden met all the other eight players left out after training with the squad over the summer: Nick De Luca and Calum MacRae (Edinburgh), Thom Evans, Al Kellock, Graeme Morrison (all Glasgow Warriors), Ally Dickinson, Al Strokosch (both Gloucester) and Gordon Ross (Saracens).

He said he had thanked them for their efforts in making selection hugely competitive, asked them to go back to their clubs and demonstrate what progress they have made but be ready should they be required, since history shows an average of three extra players are called upon in the course of World Cups.

In saying so he admitted the omission of Kellock, the Warriors captain, had been a particularly difficult decision.

"That was the tightest call in that there were more in the mix there than elsewhere," said Hadden.

Ross, the one member of that group who has previous World Cup experience and like Kellock a starter for Scotland against South Africa just last summer, was meanwhile a victim of the decision to switch from what was seen as a conventional split of 16 forwards and 14 backs. Hadden said the nature of a schedule that has been particularly tough on Scotland had influenced the decision to take 17 forwards.

"That is something we've talked about for a long time," said the coach.

"We have a string of games that are so close together we felt we had to err on the forwards side."

Only five days separate Scotland's meeting with Romania and that with New Zealand. There are then only a further six days before the likely crunch match against Italy.

"What focussed our minds was that against Romania last autumn we didn't get the better of them up front, then we face New Zealand, who aren't bad, before we face Italy," Hadden pointed out.

"Putting that in perspective out of Saturday's 22 who beat Ireland, seven players were unavailable to train yesterday and six of them could not train today and most of them are forwards."

That argument only reinforces the expectation that Scotland may be forced to hold back most of their first choice players for the meeting with the All Blacks in order to focus on beating the Italians.

Some may claim that will devalue the tournament but if so the problem lies with organisers, who have given Italy, who won at Murrayfield in the Six Nations Championship this year, almost double Scotland's rest time ahead of that final pool match.

Since that would make the meeting with the All Blacks - whom Scotland have never beaten - even more of a foregone conclusion, it only reinforces the challenge for the marketeers who launched their campaign yesterday. Following a successful Chariots of Fire' photo-shoot on St Andrew's West Sands, new figure-hugging strips, worn for the first time on Saturday, may also have helped attract a new audience, while a striking poster campaign featuring a topless Sean Lamont spread-eagled across a Saltire, seems further designed to glamourise the image.

While most if not all look to be in the condition of their lives, rugby afficionados will currently be focussing on the shape of the squad rather than individuals, though. In that regard Ross's loss was almost certainly the gain of the youngest member of the final 30 and the maturity beyond his years that has marked him out from his peers since his mid-teens was cited as the reason for Johnny Barclay's inclusion.

Hadden admitted to veering from his normal thinking when selecting the 20-year-old who is, by two and a half years, the youngest member of the squad and is the only uncapped squad member.

"I rate experience very high, but what has impressed me most has been John's consistently high level of performance during the past year," Hadden explained.

"The form of young players tends to go up and down with every match, but that has not been the case with him."

Barclay - selected for Scotland's sevens squad as a 16-year-old and first invited to train with the senior national team just a month after his 18th birthday before he had made his Glasgow Warriors debut - was relieved and surprised by his inclusion.

"The names went up in the tunnel and mine was first alphabetically.

"I honestly had absolutely no idea before Monday morning," said the youngster, who admitted that like most commentators he had always been sure Jason White, Simon Taylor, Ally Hogg, Kelly Brown and Dave Callam would be included.

Perhaps the one player with even more reason to pinch himself is Fergus Thomson, his clubmate, who was called into the development squad only last month when another Warrior, Dougie Hall, was ruled out through injury.

Even when winning his first cap on Saturday, Thomson did not feel confident of World Cup selection since while there was wide expectation that three hookers as well as three scrum-halves would travel, that had never been confirmed by the management.

"I think they wanted to keep every position as competitive as possible,"

said Thomson.

"I was happy to get my first cap but was sweating until the squad was announced."