A lengthy dive towards the stated target of sending the largest ever Scotland team into action at this year's Commonwealth Games was aptly made at Tollcross yesterday as the aquatics contingent was unveiled.

While there will be further qualifying opportunities for those in disciplines where the maximum of three places have not been allocated, 38 swimmers and two divers already comprise the Scottish entry in the water and it is a squad that is expected to set a tone in terms of more than just sending record numbers.

Aquatics has, after all, produced more Commonwealth Games medals for Scotland than any other sport - 73 in all - and there has been an insistence that no-one is being picked for this team who has not produced a performance that shows them capable of reaching finals and, by extension, winning medals.

Just why they should believe that they can show their compatriots the way was outlined yesterday by Ross Murdoch, the sport's newest star, who explained yesterday how he had been so inspired by a hero figure in Scotland team-mate Michael Jamieson, the Olympic 200 metre breast-stoke silver medallist.

The 20-year-old, whose own breakthrough came in that same London Olympic summer when he won gold medals in the 50 and 200 metre breast-stroke at the European Junior Championships, admits he initially found it tough to cope with lining up alongside Jamieson.

"Absolutely," he said, when asked if he had been in any way star-struck. "I've never really spoken to Michael about when he went to the Olympics but, for me, he's been almost a hero, someone to look up to.

"At last year's British Championships when I won my first British title I was stood beside MJ in the heats and semi-finals and it was sort of 'I know where this guy's been'. It does run through my mind, but when you're behind the blocks you need to keep your head right and try to stay calm, keep your nerve and stick to your race plan.

"I started to get over it last year at the World Championships. We were on the same team there competing in the same event, the 100, and I got to know him a little bit better then, but still sometimes it does faze me a little bit."

More to the point, though, it was clearly inspirational for a man who last week added the British 100 metre breaststroke title to the Scottish 50m and 100m titles won a week earlier.

"Seeing what he did in London was fantastic because I was actually at the Olympic trials and was in the race in which he qualified for the Olympics. I wasn't close to the standard I'm swimming at now so to see him qualify and then go on and come second was fantastic for me to watch. I loved watching it," said Murdoch.

"He performed his best on the day and got better through the heats, semi-finals and the final and just tore it up and made me realise it was possible to do it.

"I was actually on holiday with my family in the Lake District when he won his silver medal, but I managed to get to London the day before. I was provided with a ticket to watch the 200 metres heats for the Olympics.

"I watched him there and he looked in great shape and then that night I watched him in the semi-finals and was so excited to see him go into the final where he goes out and produces the performance of his life right there on the biggest stage."

At the other end of the experience scale in this squad, Robbie Renwick, the one male survivor from the Scottish swimming team that went to the 2006 Games in Melbourne, had a rather different experience when exposed recently to a rival he describes as having been "a huge inspiration to him". Noting, self-deprecatingly, that Michael Phelps was a long way from his fittest at the time since he was just coming out of retirement, the reigning Commonwealth 200 metre freestyle champion can claim to be among the select few to have beaten arguably the greatest swimmer of all time, albeit in a training race.

However, there was a cruel reminder of a previous encounter when they dug out footage of a prior meeting, at the 2008 Olympics.

"The whole race he was swimming 10 metres in front of me. We were just laughing about it. I was 18 at the time and he had won eight gold medals," Renwick explained. That was then, however, and now, at the grand old age of 25, the Aberdonian who is based at the Games swimming venue at Tollcross, is a senior figure who believes he has used what he has learned in the intervening years to considerable advantage in terms of timing his effort properly.

"I didn't really compromise my training too much to get on the team so I've been able to maintain my training throughout and the purpose of that is the goal of the Commonwealth Games this summer and trying to get my gold medal back," he explained.

However, the message to the team newcomers from this relative veteran is simply to give it their all when the chance arrives.

"I remember being a youngster in 2006 and these guys just need to go into this competition fearless and they'll be absolutely fantastic. It's very challenging just getting on the team itself, so the hard work's been done and they can just get out and enjoy it," said Renwick.