“Surreal,” says Scott Cummings. The Scotland secondrow’s reaction to being picked and putting himself in a position of possibly playing in one of the three Test matches against Australia to become a Lion is not unlike that of many of the players in the squad. Like Christmas, it is a peculiar kind of wonder and delight, a welcoming into a brotherhood.
“Hearing your name called out was probably the highlight of my professional career so far,” he says. “It’s something you dream of as a kid and as a player. Over the past couple of years, it’s definitely been a target for me. Obviously, with being injured for a decent part of the season, I didn’t know if that was going to affect my chances so hearing your name called ...”
Watch some of the clips of Cummings and it is evident that Scotland have a lock with some pace. Combined with his height and power, he is a ground-making player with ball in hand.
A fractured arm kept him out of this season’s entire Six Nations and his reappearance from the bench in April made it a long shot that he had done enough for Lions head coach Andy Farrell to take notice. That Farrell did track him shows the esteem in which he holds the 28-year-old. Apart from pace, his intelligent running lines have always stood out, Cummings often appearing on the shoulders of attacking players.
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“I’ve always said that if you play well for your club, you get picked for national and if you get picked for national, you end up being picked for the Lions,” he says. “For me, it’s just trying to represent Glasgow as well as I can every day and represent Scotland as much as I could. I want to get my hands on the ball.
“I feel like I’m someone who has got a bit of speed in their game, that’s probably one of my points of difference. So trying to get my hands on the ball, run lines, and impact the defence as much as I can.”
He has plenty of competition, not least from Ireland in James Ryan, Joe McCarthy and Tadhg Beirne. Then there’s the England duo of Maro Itoje and Ollie Chessum.
Six into two and one on the bench. Three are going to be disappointed when Farrell picks his first Test side and, with Itoje named as tour captain, the first English captain since Martin Johnson in 2001, it is going to be a dogfight among the group.
“You meet guys after games but never have the same in-depth chats we’ve had over the last couple of camps,” says Cummings. “All similar players, someone like Joe McCarthy is that big, strong, physical presence. Workhorses like Maro and lineout guys like Ollie Chessum and James Ryan. We’ve all got different skill sets and we’re all on this journey together. We have to help each other out.
“It’s a good thing for secondrows, because you need a partner. It’s not like it’s just one person in your position. We need all the secondrows playing well so that when someone swaps in there are partners.
“We’re all here to compete for a Test jersey and put ourselves out there to compete for the team. We also want to win the Lions series, that’s the main objective as a squad, to win the series.”
That’s what is appealing about Friday’s game against Argentina at the Aviva Stadium. It’s a chance for an early impact when many in the squad will not be involved. Every match is an opportunity and Cummings knows if he is picked he must stand out, make his skill set shine in Dublin.
“The coaches have put it on us,” he says. “We’ve only been together for a short period of time so there will be some mistakes.
“We’re still learning our systems, but Friday is a massive opportunity for us to show what we’ve been working on, and they’re telling us to go and make rugby decisions, attack it, don’t sit back and let Argentina play. Go and get them, go and show what we can do as a team.”
