Family ties guide Evans brothers to start line

Published on Wednesday 11 February 2009 21:57

MAX Evans paid tribute to the driving force that was his Scottish grandfather, and his younger brother, Thom, insisted that playing for Scotland far outweighed singing to 20,000 screaming girls while they thrust him their underwear. On Saturday they will be playing international rugby together for the first time.

Max and Thom follow Sean and Rory Lamont to become the 20th set of brothers to take the field together in a full international, and both are certain of a rousing welcome from Scottish supporters desperate to see a new attacking spark in the Stade de France this weekend.

The duo are well aware of the kind of reception they will receive from the host side, however, having beaten Toulouse with Glasgow in the Heineken Cup this season. Both were key figures in defence and attack, with Max revealing a growing ability to cause mayhem with his strength, off-loading and kicking. The centre scored a try and created another, and duly won the man-of-the-match award.

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Three of Toulouse's backs that day, Clement Poitrenaud, Yannick Jauzion and Cedric Heymans are in the French team this weekend, while Max also has Graeme Morrison alongside him from that match.

Thom said: "Playing Toulouse for Glasgow's definitely a plus going into this game; going there having beaten a team like that over in France, with the talent they had in their back line especially, is a great thing to have.

"It will be even tougher, but we know we can win there. One thing you've got to do is start well against them. That's what we did in Toulouse. We closed them down early on and got the crowd on side, but if you give them time and space it could be a bad day.

"We have to really come out of the blocks firing and get in their faces early. When you get in their face they don't like it at all, but if you give them momentum it's a long day."

The brothers had pushed hard for places against Wales in the opening match of the tournament, but were overlooked to the chagrin particularly of Glasgow supporters. Coach Frank Hadden had stuck by Max's centre rival Ben Cairns, who had played well for Scotland since making his debut against Argentina last summer. Max had played just 20 minutes for Scotland off the bench against Canada in November.

The reason Hadden gave yesterday for leaving out Thom, the Magners League top try-scorer and blessed with scorching pace, was that he was not the type of player with the quick feet in t raffic or power to help Phil Godman crack open the Welsh rush defence around the rucks – the plan Scotland had with Simon Webster and Sean Lamont.

Thom admitted: "I was obviously really disappointed to be left out last week, but Frank explained his reasons for it and I fully respected that decision.

"But he always said it was going to be a different gameplan against France, and that we would play a bit more expansively so I'm just really happy that we've got the nod this week. It was in the back of my mind ( a starting place against France]. You can never assume anything at international level, but I had a good feeling."

The pair are close friends as well as brothers, sharing a house together in Glasgow, and while they have taken different routes to get to this point – Max having taken time out from rugby to rest a back problem and duly become a scratch golf pro, and Thom joining a top boyband for a year – they both recall clearly the days spent at Wellington College in England with their grandfather, Glasgow-born Fred Thom, shouting encouragement.

"It's a massive dream come true," said Max. "Our first aim was to play for Glasgow together, but talking about it we said 'hey, how great would it be to play for Scotland together?' I'm so excited to be starting personally, but also to be starting alongside my brother.

"You look at the legends like the Hastings brothers who have played before, and it was the Lamonts (Rory and Sean] who made us believe we could achieve this ambition.

"Unfortunately, our parents won't be there this weekend – they had their one holiday in the year booked for Barbados this week and we didn't want them to cancel it; we didn't know if we'd be involved at this stage.

"But we know their support is there, and we have other family coming. And I know our grandfather will be watching. Because we both went to boarding school together, and my parents lived in Portugal, we spent our Sundays with our grandparents, who lived literally round the corner from the school.

"So any rugby games that were on, our grandfather was part of it with us. He was a proud Scot and supported anyone that played England. I know it will probably be quite emotional come Saturday, knowing he will be very proud upstairs of both his grandchildren."

Thom's sojourn in music had him warming up for the likes of Westlife and Peter Andre, but he insisted sporting theatres were always the real ambition.

"It was a great year in the band. I've never denied that. But it was always just a year out. It was great when you have 50,000 girls screaming your name – some throwing knickers at you – and booing as well. But it's nothing like it's going to be in the Stade de France."

This will be Thom's fourth Test match, his first coming against Argentina in the first Test last June. He was dropped for the second Test largely due to defensive naivety, and that seemed to lie behind his exclusion last week. However, he insisted that that side of his game has improved hugely over the past year.

"Graham Steadman (defence coach] has worked hard with me; it wasn't so much my technical defence, but my positioning – knowing when to fly up and drift out. I guess that's been my eagerness to make the tackle, but I've worked hard on that and playing week-in, week-out for Glasgow – I've only missed one game – so it's improved a lot. I feel very comfortable going into the game.

"I'm really looking forward to playing for Scotland again, and playing with my brother. It's quite special, but the target is to turn the little successes we've had with Glasgow into bigger ones with Scotland."