ROSS Beattie, the Scotland and Newport Gwent Dragons back row forward, believes he is a victim of new coach Matt Williams' policy of concentrating mainly on Scottish-based players.

Beattie played in the Six Nations Championship last season when he was with Bristol and he was a member of the World Cup squad in Australia.

After being a member of the Scottish squad earlier this season he has now been dropped and is not among the Six Nations candidates.

Williams has controversially announced that he wants all Scottish players to go 'home' and says he will give preference to a player based in that country as opposed to outside.

Beattie thinks he has fallen foul of Williams' new policy, though there are four English-based players in the Scotland team to face Wales at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday.

"In my opinion the team is not the best possible combination, but Matt Williams is the coach and he decides," said Beattie, who has made great strides with the Dragons since joining them last summer.

"Matt has made a statement of intent and he has followed it up by trying to play Scottish based players.

"A new guy has come in and changed everything, the coaching staff and managerial team and the structure. "All new coaches like to change things and he's made some bold statements."

But Beattie respects the coaching ability of Williams, an Australian formerly in charge of Leinster.

"He's a fantastic coach with some great ideas and the way he's been training us and approaching the game is different from past Scottish sides," he said.

"The other teams will have no background on Scotland's moves or how we play the game, so that's a positive."

Beattie believes Scotland need to be wary of the Welsh backs who created such an impression in the World Cup.

"Wales have got fantastic backs and it's one area where we might be worried," he admitted. "But our new centre Tom Philip is an awesome tackler and if he puts one in straightaway he'll be fine.

"It's going to be a really good game, Scotland are trying to play an expansive attacking game and if all the moves worked on in training come off it should be fantastic.

"There is another good young prospect in scrum half Chris Cusiter who has been picked ahead of Michael Blair, and Chris Paterson is playing really well with a lot of pace.

"A lot of the Scottish pack have been around so we are on a level playing field there."

Scotland: B Hinshelwood; S Danielli, T Philip, B Laney, A Henderson, C Paterson, C Cusiter, T Smith, G Bulloch, B Douglas, S Murray, S Grimes, C Mather, S Taylor, A Hogg. Replacements: R Russell, G Kerr, J White, S Cross, M Blair, D Parks, S Webster.