Stuart McInally has been to the brink of his first cap twice, but the converted back-rower to hooker will surely get across the whitewash at last in Turin this weekend.
The Edinburgh player will culminate a two-year journey from being a back-rower good enough to be on the Scotland bench but excruciatingly, and despite being called to pitchside, he didn’t get on against South Africa to being a hooker good enough to start for his country on Saturday in the second Rugby World Cup warm-up against Italy.
And frustratingly, it would probably have happened last week in Dublin but for a last minute stomach bug that forced his withdrawl.
McInally’s risk in making the switch from the back row where he captained Scotland Under-20 two years in succession to the front row was considerable, but he’s had few doubts along the way, despite his bad luck on the verge of a Scotland call.
“Last Monday I was in the supermarket with my girlfriend and thought ‘I don’t feel very well’, and that night was one of the worst of my life,” he said. “I went from getting congratulated by the boys for a first cap to not training for two days.
“On Thursday I came in, it was potentially my debut and I really wanted to give it a go. But within an hour they said, `Look, it’s a warm-up game, you need to take the emotions out of it being your first cap’, so they put Fraser in, and on reflection I’m glad they did because I wasn’t right again until Sunday.”
The first near thing came when he was called to pitchside after 50 minutes of the test against South Africa at Murrayfield in 2012, but was still on the warm-up bike as time expired.
“If I’d got on then, I probably wouldn’t have made the switch to hooker,” he admitted, a process that began with him practising throwing lineouts at a tree in Inverleith Park and getting ticked off by a local resident and now leads with Scotland recognition.
“That started before I made the switch,” he said. “The World Cup was mentioned when we were discussing it, the plan was this was something we could turn around in two years, and it gave me a target.
“There was nothing guaranteed and when I wasn’t getting games with Edinburgh at the start of last season, I feared for my chances but it came around.”
McInally’s power and pace from his back row days is still there, and he has gradually become accustomed to the hooker’s arts, mainly with the assistance of the man he’s trying to take the place of, Ross Ford, who made the same switch much earlier in his career.
“He was the first person I asked about the switch and he thought it was a great idea,” continued McInally. “The way he put it to me was that he thought if anyone could do the skills of throwing and scrummaging that I’d be able to do it.
“He said there would be dark times in the scrum and lineout when I just wouldn’t want to be there. But you get through it and keep learning.
“Scrummaging hasn’t been an issue, although after my first full game I couldn’t move my head or back and thought I’d injured myself. It’s just been neck-strengthening, and throwing-in has been lots of work with (Edinburgh forwards coach) Stevie Scott just minimising anything that could go wrong.
“I was worried because you see hookers with 10 years’ experience at the top having problems with throwing in. But maybe coming late I’ve managed to avoid picking up any bad habits.”
There may be three hookers in the final Rugby World Cup squad of 31, but McInally can still do a job in the back row he was brilliant there in Edinburgh’s rout of the Dragons in the European Challenge Cup semi-final and he knows versatility could help him.
“I’m there as a hooker, totally, and I don’t presume anything,” he said. “I agree versatility is not doing me any harm, but I don’t think about becoming this brilliant versatile player, I want to put all my energy into hooker.
“When I made the decision I’d committed to it, and it wasn’t something I’d taken lightly as I was quite proud of what I had done in the back row.
“I’d made the squad for that match against South Africa and was eager to crack on. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise I didn’t get on, I might have a better career at hooker than in back row, you never know what might happen.”