Tommy Seymour’s thoughts were a little scrambled after his last action on a rugby pitch, but the Scotland wing is crystal-clear in his thinking about what Scotland need to do in the viagogo Autumn Series.
Seymour was knocked out cold during Glasgow’s European Cup win at Montpellier two weeks ago, but his magnificent form for the Warriors this season meant once he was fully recovered he has edged out Tim Visser for the left wing slot in Saturday’s opener against Argentina at BT Murrayfield.
And although many are thinking that two out of three from the Autumn Series would be good business for Vern Cotter’s new-look Scotland given that one is the world champion All Blacks who the Scots have never beaten Seymour isn’t having it.
“100%, we’re going out to win every game. You’re already in a bad place if you go out earmarking two or one out of a series of three,” he stressed.
“Where do you draw the line in your thinking then? Do you say ‘We can do it up to this point, but we’ll just forget about one thing and focus on this?’
“There’s no way of getting around it: New Zealand are the best team in the world and they’re going to be a ferocious test for us. But we can ill afford to think about that right now, we can’t disregard it, but we can’t think about that now.
“Argentina are going to be a huge challenge. They played incredibly well in the Rugby Championship, could have got a couple more wins, so they’re going to be very confident.”
The Pumas will also be aiming for revenge for their loss to Scotland in Cordoba in June, when Seymour breaks set up both of Scotland’s tries.
“They’ll be looking to come over here and cause a lot of chaos for us in our own backyard, especially considering what we did in the summer over there,” he said. “They felt they deserved to win that game, and they’ll be looking to get one back.”
In the meantime, Seymour is still covering his blushes from his premature exit for the Montpellier game, when he had a head-on collision with Sitaleki Timani and was stretchered from the field in a neck brace. He was quickly spotted by the French TV cameras on the phone in the dugout, trying to douse a few fires back home.
“It was my girlfriend needless to say she wasn’t feeling the best after watching me get carried off,” he said. “I couldn’t get through to her and she’d been phoning other people, my mum being one.
“I thought it best to let her know I was all right, but then the camera panned across to me and there I was on the big screen, which was a bit embarassing.
“I’m good now, I’ve been taken great care of and the physios and doctors on the day and since have been great. All the protocols have been done and not rushed.
“I think it’s fair to say it was a clean knockout. The guy’s a pretty big dude I don’t know what I was thinking, to be honest with you. I’ll not be running that line again!”
It was the second time in two weeks that Seymour had not made it to the second half after his blistering first half performance against Bath confirmed him as the form wing in Scotland.
“We’ve been doing really well. We got a good start in the league, the first win against Leinster did a lot for us.
“It helps a lot there are a lot of guys from Glasgow in the Scotland squad because they’re really confident and enjoying their rugby.
“But as a squad we’re focusing on bringing in those confidence levels domestically, but bringing them together as a unit.”
There can’t be this void of certain partnerships from the same club being effective, and if a guy has to come in from outside of that, they end up not being as effective.”
The Scotland team named today is likely to have an all-Glasgow back line, with Finn Russell favoured at fly-half, the centres being Alex Dunbar and Mark Bennett making his Scotland debut while Seymour will form the Warriors’ first-choice back three with Sean Maitland and Stuart Hogg.
In the pack the Gray brothers seem set to pack down together for the first time in the second row, behind a front row of Alasdair Dickinson, Ross Ford and Euan Murray.
The back row will feature two more Glasgow players, Rob Harley and No 8 Adam Ashe, winning just his second cap, leaving open side Blair Cowan and skipper Greig Laidlaw the only English-based players in the starting XV.