Mower has yet to play again for Newcastle

Mower ruptured knee ligaments on the eve of the tournament in Australia but will be assessed by the Scottish medical team on his return to action.

"I was quite down when I was first injured but I've been working hard and things have progressed well," he said.

"I'm looking forward to getting right back into the thick of things."

Mower has named in an expanded 49-man group for training in Stirling.

A number of players will be attending on Tuesday only, while other players will be released back to their clubs on Wednesday to prepare for weekend fixtures.

Even against the Italians, I thought we had shown some improvement Scotland flanker Allister Hogg

"I've been running for a while now and have recently started doing contact work and bag work so am pretty positive about being back to full fitness very soon," he added.

Scotland have also called up Edinburgh centre Matt Dey for the first time.

The 22-year-old - a member of the Scottish Institute of Sport - impressed in Edinburgh's Celtic League victory over Leinster last month.

Meanwhile, Scotland flanker Allister Hogg insists that the rest of the season is not about damage limitation now that his side are hot favourites to pick up the wooden spoon following defeats by England, Wales and Italy.

"Obviously we'll take France on and look to beat them - that's the only way we can look at it," said the 21-year-old back-rower.

"There's no point going into the match trying to keep their score as low as possible - we want to go there and win.

"We're making progress. We looked better against England than we did against Wales and, even against the Italians, I thought we had shown some improvement."

Scotland training squad:

Forwards - Ross Beattie (Gwent Dragons), Gordon Bulloch (Glasgow), Simon Cross (Edinburgh), Andrew Dall (Edinburgh), Bruce Douglas (Borders), Ross Ford* (Borders), Iain Fullarton (Sale Sharks), Scott Gray (Bath), Stuart Grimes (Newcastle Falcons), Andrew Hall (Glasgow), Dougie Hall (Edinburgh), Nathan Hines (Edinburgh), Allister Hogg* (Edinburgh), Allan Jacobsen (Edinburgh), Alastair Kellock* (Edinburgh), Gavin Kerr (Leeds Tykes), Scott MacLeod (Borders), Cameron Mather (Glasgow), Andrew Mower (Newcastle Falcons), Euan Murray (Glasgow), Scott Murray (Edinburgh), Jon Petrie (Glasgow), Robert Russell (Saracens), Craig Smith (Edinburgh), Tom Smith (Northampton Saints), Simon Taylor (Edinburgh), Jason White (Sale Sharks)

Backs - Graeme Beveridge (Glasgow), Mike Blair* (Edinburgh), Chris Cusiter * (Borders), Simon Danielli (Bath), Matt Dey* (Edinburgh), Marcus Di Rollo (Edinburgh), Phil Godman* (Newcastle Falcons), Andrew Henderson (Glasgow), Ben Hinshelwood (Worcester), Sean Lamont (Glasgow), Brendan Laney (Edinburgh), Derrick Lee (Edinburgh), Gareth Morton (Borders), Dan Parks (Glasgow), Chris Paterson (Edinburgh), Sam Pinder (Glasgow), Tom Philip* (Edinburgh), Gordon Ross (Leeds Tykes), Nikki Walker (Borders), Simon Webster (Edinburgh), Graeme Morrison (Glasgow), Alistair Warnock* (Edinburgh)