Blues duo tussle for Wales jersey

The 26-year-old has kept his Wales No.13 shirt for Saturday’s RBS Six Nations clash at Murrayfield, but with 2005 Grand Slam winner Shanklin lurking in the wings, Robinson is feeling the pressure.

After shaking off the thigh injury which kept him out of last weekend’s defeat by Ireland, Shanklin could make an impact off the bench against the Scots, but Robinson wants a good performance to convince Welsh coach Gareth Jenkins to keep him on. Having had a three year gap between playing against Scotland in 2003 and touring Argentina with Wales last summer, the Cardiff Blues centre is keen to stay in the squad.

“Tom is a quality player and it keeps the pressure on knowing you have a player like that on the bench waiting to come on,” said Robinson. “I wasn’t sure if I would keep my place; nobody knew how quickly Tom would be available, it was a day-by-day thing. I was hoping I would be involved so I was ecstatic when Gareth kept the same back line.”

Having been up against one of the world’s best midfield partnerships in Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy, Robinson is relishing the chance to take on an inexperienced Scottish midfield.

After the Twickenham mauling, Scotland’s new fly-half Phil Godman will win only his seventh cap alongside fellow rookie Rob Dewey and Robinson knows all about the Edinburgh pair.

He added: “I am not surprised at the changes in the Scotland side – that is an attacking back line and we’ll have to work on that. We are fortunate to have played these guys a lot in the Magners League, so we know what they are about. They are definitely more attacking-minded than those they have replaced.

“We’ll get more chances against Scotland, it was frustrating that it didn’t quite pan out the way we wanted against Ireland as we had planned it to. We have had a week to get things together and hopefully we can get a result.”