IT happens to us all: that moment when you realise your time as a youngster has ended and the real, grown-up world beckons. For rugby players, it is the season they come out of the under-20s and have to make their way as a senior without the cushion of age-grade games.
That is exactly where Edinburgh back-row Jamie Ritchie, finds himself this season. After a stellar age-grade career that involved captaining the under-20s when he was a year younger and losing the job only because he was too involved in professional games with Edinburgh to be reliably available, he is ready to take the next step.
“It is a pretty big season for me because it is my first as a senior player,” said Ritchie, who will turn 20 this week. “Not being able to play under-20s this year takes me away from that. It means I can concentrate fully on my Edinburgh career and hopefully push on to establish myself in the squad week-in, week-out.
“There is a lot of competition for places with guys such as Villi [Viliami Fihaki, the Tongan flanker] coming in. He is a big guy, a big ball carrier and a really nice bloke, too. There are also other guys who can fill the role like Maggie [Magnus Bradbury], so the competition is there – it helps us all get better.”
Going into the season, however, Ritchie is the man in possession of the blindside flanker spot and it is up to the others to try to take it away from him. Although a year ago he sat with the media in his native St Andrews and cheerfully mused on the chances of getting any game time at all, in the end he played in 17 of Edinburgh’s 28 games last term – partly, it must be said, because injuries kept Nasi Manu and Mike Coman out of the equation for chunks of the season.
Some of those games came at the expense of under-20s caps in the Six Nations, but Ritchie was there when Scotland beat England at the start of that tournament and back for the Junior World Cup, when Scotland had their best-ever campaign in the pool stage before slumping in the knockout phase – to a degree as a result of injuries, including one to Ritchie himself that kept him out of the last match.
“We were pretty happy with our performances in the group stage apart from one blip against England,” he said. “We could have done a wee bit better and finished a wee bit higher but, overall, I was happy with my last year at that level.
“We saw the damage that injuries can do at that age-grade
because there is not as much depth as elsewhere.
“We lost on average about two players a match and that really killed us come the last couple of games. We had a really strong squad, the strongest I have been involved in, but it was unfortunate to lose so many guys.”
If last season is anything to go by, however, Ritchie can expect more of the same with Edinburgh, though he does feel the club is in a better state to cope than it was a few months ago.
“We have the strength for some rotation this year,” he said. “We have high aspirations and are not going to reach them with 23
players playing week in, week out, we will have to rotate.
“Obviously there will be injuries,
but there are guys to fill the roles so I am really confident about
the squad.
“I am more confident in our systems and defensively I feel like I have progressed and taken on a bit of a leadership role. I really enjoy that responsibility of communicating to the guys.”
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