IN west central Scotland, growing up to become a footballer may be every lad's dream. In the rugby heartlands nestled deep in the Scottish borders, however, perhaps not so much.
Richard Tait was one youngster who bucked the trend to turn his attention to chasing a ball of the round variety to pursue a career in professional sport. At the tender age of just seven, the young lad from Kelso gave up playing for the town's revered rugby club after being inspired by the sight of Scotland strutting their stuff on the world stage in France back in 1998.
It is a sliding-doors moment that has clearly paid off for the man that will tonight line-up at right-back for Motherwell, ready to take on Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Ladbrokes Premiership.
"I was born in Melrose but lived in Kelso," explained the 26-year-old. "Me and my brother played rugby for quite a while, instead of football, and it so happened France 98 was on at that time and we switched to football. I think I made the right choice, I don’t think I’m big enough to play rugby!
"I played for Kelso as a kid and Ross Ford was also at the same club, the big hooker who has gone on to do such good things with Scotland and the Lions. It’s a good rugby town. I only played at a young age, tournaments and the likes, I was never really big enough to play full rugby.
"I played rugby until that World Cup and then dad said I had to pick one of them. I was a scrum half at rugby - I liked to get stuck in, but get out of the way at the same time!"
Motherwell go into tonight's game at Fir Park in ninth place but know that a win in the first game of a home Highland double header will go a long way to propelling them into the top six. It has been a stop-start opening to the league campaign for the Lanarkshire side. Only four games from a possible nine have been lost but only one victory since the first day of the season has seen progress up the table slowed.
"A couple of games at home, part of three important games and it would be nice to take maximum points," said Tait, "but it’s never as easy as that. It’s an important time for us.
"From early on the lads settled in and the boys already here made it easy for us. The squad and team are taking shape and hopefully we’ll go from strength to strength in the next three games."
It has been a similar story for Inverness. Again sitting with just two wins to their name, Richie Foran's team have steadied the ship after losing their first three games on the spin, and even though they could only take a draw against Kilmarnock at the weekend, travel down the road in high spirits.
“We’ve lost just once in the last seven games so there are a lot of positives to be taken. We had the Rangers defeat in between which spoiled the unbeaten run," said Josh Meekings. “But even though this weekend wasn’t what we wanted we still ground it out and managed to get a point in the end. Hopefully we can take that down to Motherwell and get a good result.
“We need to get out of the blocks quickly, stamp our authority on the game. We have to give everything we can and if the manager wants more passion that’s what we’ve got to show.
“We’ve got to show a desire to improve.”
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