FEW players can have come as close as Stuart McInally - not once but twice - to winning a Scotland cap only to be denied at almost the last minute. It is an unenviable record that the Edinburgh hooker has every intention of ending against Italy on Saturday.
The first occasion, when he was still a back-row forward, he was an unused substitute against South Africa. The second was just last week: named in the squad to play Ireland, the 25-year-old was laid low with a stomach bug. This time round, having regained his health and been named in the squad for Turin, he aims to make it third time lucky.
“The tracksuit top was never off in that game against the Springboks, but I was down at pitchside because someone had taken a knock,” McInally recalled of that first match in late 2012. “It was 50 minutes into the game. I was turning my legs over on the bike - and half an hour later I was still doing that.
“Last week was tough. I found out that I was meant to be involved in the game against Ireland. Monday we trained, felt fine, Monday night I was walking around the supermarket with my girlfriend and I said `I’m not feeling very well’ and that night was one of the worst I’ve ever had.
“I rarely get it, but when I do it seems to hit me really hard and it was such a shame it was that week. I thought it was food poisoning and half the squad would probably be off, but it was something else. One other guy had an upset stomach, so maybe we just picked up a virus from somewhere or other.
“I didn’t train Tuesday or Wednesday, then I came in on Thursday. I really wanted to give it a go and have a chance to play, but within an hour they said, `Look, it’s a warm-up game, you need to take the emotions out of it being your first cap. We’ll just put Fraser [Brown] in’ and that’s what they did.”
In the circumstances, McInally was glad he did not try to force the issue and play last week. In fact, he also accepts that failure to get off the bench the first time could also have been helpful in the long term: had he played, he might never gone on to make the switch to hooker the following summer.
“Very emotional and gutted,” he said of missing out on last week’s match in Dublin. “It’s been something I’ve waited for so long for. Having that taken away was pretty tough.
“But once I reflected on it, watching the game at home with my mum and dad I was very relieved I wasn’t playing, because I still wasn’t right. Sunday I felt back to 100 per cent.
“If I’d got on in that game against South Africa, I probably wouldn’t have made the move to hooker. It could have been very different, maybe a blessing in disguise. I might have a better career at hooker than in back row - you never know what might happen had I stayed back row, of course.”
Having come so close to being capped from the back row, McInally knew he was taking a calculated risk when he moved to hooker in May 2013 - even if it was a switch that both Brown and Ross Ford, his Edinburgh and Scotland team-mate, had made before him. The aim was to complete the transition successfully in time to make it into this year’s Rugby World Cup squad, and now that goal is within his grasp.
“Nothing was guaranteed, but that was the target to aim for, that we could actually turn this round in two years,” he added. “Fordy was the first person I asked about it, and he thought it was a great idea. The way he put it to me was that he thought if anyone could do the skills of throwing and scrummaging that I’d be able to do it. He was confident I could do it, while maintaining my style of play, it could be quite a positive.
“He said when he moved there was some real dark times and sometimes in the scrum and lineout he just didn’t want to be there. But you get through it and you learn. As long as you’re happy to embrace failure and learn, you should keep moving up. That’s what I’ve tried to do: not worry if I miss the odd throw or scrum.”
Or even the odd chance of a debut. On Saturday, surely, that willingness to learn will provide its reward, and McInally will become a Scotland player at last.
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