I'd take the rough with the smooth every time

BEFORE my first cap against Wales in 2004, they brought in some ex-internationals, Scottish rugby legends, to come and have dinner with the team on the Wednesday night and I’ll never forget Finlay Calder was sat at our table.

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I was saying about how I would be making my debut and seeing I was a bit nervous, he said something like, ‘don’t worry, Chris, getting your first cap is very much like losing your virginity’. To which I replied, ‘I don’t know about you but there weren’t 80,000 people watching when I lost my virginity’!

Luckily for me, Mike Phillips wasn’t on the scene for Wales then. I’m not sure how I would’ve handled his chat on debut! Scrum-halves, as we all know, like a bit of chat and he was the worst, so irritating! Obviously he was good but he created a lot of enemies, he was just so aggressive, there was no wit or charm to it.

Over the next two years I played pretty much every game for Scotland and the momentum from that, and the form I was showing, contributed to me getting a Lions callup in ’05. I think those early years were the most enjoyable for me because it was all so new and exciting and it was this dream I had to play for Scotland, in the Six Nations, and in all the greats stadiums around the world had its own charm.

George Gregan was a guy I idolised as a teenager, with how he played the game and everything else, so to play against him as a 21-year-old was amazing. In one game at the Olympic Stadium, I got a good sidestep on him and swapped shirts with him; he was the best for a long time, so it meant a lot. I also scored my first Test try that day, and generally speaking, I enjoyed summer tours the most, more than the two World Cups I went to.