MY RUGBY WORLD WITH STUART MCINALLY

The ex-Scotland captain turned commercial pilot on Blair Kinghorn, lucky boxers and a famous try

- Neil Squires

WHO WAS your rugby hero and did you ever meet them? Ally Hogg. He was the man. When I was at school, I was a back-row and I wore a scrum cap like him and tried to play like him. He was so free and skilful.

There was one game when he did this charge-down and caught the ball at the same time. I thought that was amazing. When I started out at Edinburgh, I crossed over with Ally just for a little bit, which was great.

What was your first Scotland game as a fan? Scotland v South Africa in 2004. We lost 45-10! I remember thinking, 'this isn't particularly enjoyable'.

What was the best piece of advice you received as a player? It was from Grant McKelvey, my Scotland age-group coach. He asked me in a team meeting, "Who is your biggest competitor?"

I named one of the other back-rows. "Wrong," he said. "Your biggest competitor is yourself. It's you versus you in life and it's up to you to squeeze every drop out of your career." I lived my whole career by that one.

Did you have any superstitions? I started off wearing lucky boxers. But if you're relying on a superstitious pair of pants to help you win, you probably haven't done the prep, so I gave that up and always made sure I was really well prepared with extras during the week instead.