I'd take the rough with the smooth every time
The Rugby Paper|July 23, 2023
BEFORE my first cap against Wales in 2004, they brought in some ex-internationals, Scottish rugby legends, to come and have dinner with the team on the Wednesday night and I’ll never forget Finlay Calder was sat at our table.
I'd take the rough with the smooth every time

I was saying about how I would be making my debut and seeing I was a bit nervous, he said something like, ‘don’t worry, Chris, getting your first cap is very much like losing your virginity’. To which I replied, ‘I don’t know about you but there weren’t 80,000 people watching when I lost my virginity’!

Luckily for me, Mike Phillips wasn’t on the scene for Wales then. I’m not sure how I would’ve handled his chat on debut! Scrum-halves, as we all know, like a bit of chat and he was the worst, so irritating! Obviously he was good but he created a lot of enemies, he was just so aggressive, there was no wit or charm to it.

Over the next two years I played pretty much every game for Scotland and the momentum from that, and the form I was showing, contributed to me getting a Lions callup in ’05. I think those early years were the most enjoyable for me because it was all so new and exciting and it was this dream I had to play for Scotland, in the Six Nations, and in all the greats stadiums around the world had its own charm.

George Gregan was a guy I idolised as a teenager, with how he played the game and everything else, so to play against him as a 21-year-old was amazing. In one game at the Olympic Stadium, I got a good sidestep on him and swapped shirts with him; he was the best for a long time, so it meant a lot. I also scored my first Test try that day, and generally speaking, I enjoyed summer tours the most, more than the two World Cups I went to.

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