GLASGOW Warriors have signed back row Ruaridh Mackenzie until the end of the season from BT Premiership club Ayr.
The 21-year-old, who was born in Scotland but moved to New Zealand at the age of three months, scored a try against Glasgow Hawks after making his Ayr debut off the bench on Saturday.
The youngster's grandfather Gregor won a senior Scotland cap against Australia in 1984 and Mackenzie underlined his excitement at starting a career in the country of his birth.
He said to glasgowwarriors.org: "I'm delighted to have joined Glasgow Warriors and I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to prove myself. I'm excited about what’s to come.
“I have strong roots in Scotland, having been born here and all my family are Scottish.
“It's great to come back to play my rugby in Scotland."
Warriors head coach Gregor Townsend said: “It’s a great opportunity for Ruaridh to immerse himself in our culture and style of play.
“He has already made a positive impression in training and on his debut for Ayr at the weekend.
“Spending time with both clubs will really benefit Ruaridh and we’re looking forward to seeing him continue his development.”
Ayr President Billy McHarg added: “We see Ruaridh as a useful addition to our squad in our quest to win the BT Premiership this season.
“Hopefully he will follow in the footsteps of previous Ayr players such as Ali Price, Finn Russell and Mark Bennett and gain a full-time contract with the Warriors.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here