David Scott was the only homegrown player to force his way into the Scotland team that contested last year's World Cup quarter-final but he is excited for a quartet of fellow youngsters who have the chance to emulate that achievement.
The 21-year-old, originally a product of Stirling County who learned league at Easterhouse Panthers, showed what can happen after being a late call-up into the World Cup squad and is hoping his example can inspire Louis Senter, Gregor Ramsay, Lewis Clarke and Finn Murphy who have all been given a taste of involvement with the senior squad ahead of the European Championships which get underway this week.
"We're just picking up where we left off last year," Scott said, as the squad re-gathered. "We've got 12 or 13 of the World Cup squad back together - that's the core of the group - and we've added to that with some younger players which should stand us in good stead.
"It's really exciting seeing the new players come in - hopefully we'll see the team of the future on Friday night. The first thing Steve [McCormack, the head coach] said to us at training was, 'This is the first step to prepare for the 2017 World Cup.'
"A lot of us younger players have been playing first team rugby in Super League or the Championship for the last year or two now so we've been playing with a much greater physicality and at a higher speed than reserve or academy rugby."
That is the most positive way of looking at a situation which has resulted in injury and suspension depriving Scotland of the entire contingent of Australian NRL players who played such a major part for them at the World Cup. They are, though, in the right hands, since McCormack, who is marking a decade in charge of the Scotland team, has just been recruited by the most successful organisation in the sport, Wigan Warriors, to take on a leading role at his hometown club in youth and coach development.
As ever, he is looking as much to the future as the present by giving that quartet of youngsters the chance to show what they can do and to sample the senior environment. He notes they can only benefit from working alongside vastly experienced Super League players like the captain Danny Brough, Ben Kavanagh and Joe Wardle.
"We did this with Davie Scott three years ago and look how far he's come since then," McCormack said. "Hopefully these lads will do the same. Louis has shown he can cope with a step up this season and one or two of them could make the final squad."
Ramsay, 19, who is from Alloa, and Senter, 20, whose father Mark has been the driving force behind the club, are both products of Easterhouse Panthers, while Clarke, 19, from Bonnyrigg, and Murphy, 18, a Heriot's FP who is a relatively recent convert to league, caught the eye at the Commonwealth Under-19 Championships in Cumbernauld, where Scotland drew with Australia and beat England.
They are unlikely to feature in the championship matches which begin in what became something of a home from home for the Scots in Workington last autumn, with their meeting with Wales on Friday evening, but the three teenagers are also all in the Scotland under-19 squad that has two games during the same window.
With more than 50 per cent of that under-19 squad comprising home-based players from Aberdeen Warriors, Ayrshire Storm, Edinburgh Eagles and Easterhouse Panthers, they will meet their Irish counterparts in a curtain-raiser to the European Championship encounter between Scotland and Ireland in Dublin on March 25 and England Lionhearts at Edinburgh University on November 1, the day after the senior team completes its campaign against France in Galashiels.
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