FOR most Edinburgh Rugby players, the end of another disastrous season cannot come soon enough.
For Tim Visser, though, it is coming far earlier than he wants, just as he feels he has run the rust of a six-month lay-off out of his legs and is ready to get back on the try-scoring trail again.
That his why he is hoping not just to get an early chance to impress Vern Cotter, the new Scotland coach, on Scotland's summer trek round the world, but to earn further such chances. After three full games back from a broken leg, he is probably the freshest player in Scotland and is ready for anything, with the forced lay-off giving all the other accumulated bumps time to heal.
"My body has had a rest and a lot of niggles have cleared away so it is great in that respect," he said. "Leading up to this serious injury, I had been struggling with a few other things, one of them being a foot injury which had been bothering me for a long time. That has been able to heal properly. I feel really fresh; I feel like I am starting a new season and in that respect I feel good."
In fact he feels better than that. After a token five minutes on his comeback, Visser played every minute of the next three matches. Now he feels his match sharpness is returning to his game and is certain that he is at that perfect point when he feels both match fit and fresh. He is up to speed but before things start to hurt.
"It always takes me a few games," he said. "I feel I'm at the point where I am starting to pick up a lot of my sharpness so it is a bit of a shame that it is now the end of the season. If you look at the start of the season, where I missed the first few matches, it took me two or three games to get match fit. Then I scored that winning try against Munster and after that I thought 'hey, I have got some of my speed back and some of my sharpness back'.
"I think I am probably at that point at the moment. I hope I can show that against Leinster but it is a bit of a shame that it is now the end of the season."
For Visser, then, the three-week break before the summer tour is a bit of a pain and he is hoping not to be one of those players who is given an extra rest ahead of the third match, against Argentina in Cordoba.
As for the new coach, Visser is as interested as any supporter in seeing first hand what the Cotter will bring. While most of the squad have at least met and shaken hands with Cotter, who paid a flying visit to the training camp in January, that was right in the middle of Visser's injury absence and he has not had any meaningful contact since.
"I think that Vern Cotter is going to bring a new philosophy; all coaches do," Visser added. "He has obviously been used to success at Clermont Auvergne. In terms of the impact on the tour, though, I am not sure how it will work out because he is still at his club and has probably not had much time to look at Scotland.
"He will be a breath of fresh air, though. Any coach will bring that in and players always want to impress the new coach. In that respect, psychologically, he will make a big difference.
"I am at the stage now where I would like to play as much rugby as I can but at the moment all I can think about is getting into that squad. Given how I am at the moment and the way that some of the wingers have been playing, I would just be grateful to make the squad at all."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article