Joyful Jackson adamant he'll hold his own if called upon

Published on Tuesday 20 January 2009 22:17

A FINE Heineken Cup debut has helped earn 20-year-old Ruaridh Jackson a surprise call-up to the Scotland squad for the RBS Six Nations and the opportunity to work closely with his boyhood hero, Gregor Townsend.

Frank Hadden, the Scotland coach, was relaxed yesterday as he spoke of a 33-man squad for the 2009 championship with growing Test experience. He has lost Rory Lamont, Nikki Walker and Matt Mustchin from the autumn Test group to injury, but has welcomed back internationalists Sean Lamont, Graeme Morrison, Alastair Kellock, Craig Hamilton and Chris Cusiter. Jackson and Geoff Cross, the Edinburgh prop, are the only uncapped players in the squad.

Jackson's selection is the big surprise as the Glasgow youngster has started just once at stand-off, albeit producing a fine display away to Bath in the Heineken Cup. It is a move not too dissimilar to that of Matt Williams, Hadden's predecessor, when he promoted John Barclay into the senior squad fresh out of school, in 2004.

Barclay, now a Scotland regular, had not played any professional rugby, whereas Jackson is in his second year as a pro with Glasgow and made 13 appearances off the bench as well as his solitary start, and featured for Scotland 'A' in November.

Jackson said: "I know I don't have much experience, but the only way for me to gain experience is to play games at the highest level. It is an honour and a privilege to be picked for my country and if I am selected to make my debut against Wales or anyone else all I would say is 'bring it on'.

"It was a real shock when the call came through. At first I thought it might be a joke, but I recognised the voice of Guy Richardson (team manager].

"As a youngster it was Gregor Townsend and Stephen Larkham who were the players I loved watching. Both were great stand-offs and exciting to watch. My ambition has always been to play rugby for Scotland. so to be called into the Six Nations squad so early in my career is fantastic."

He is still hopeful of starting for Glasgow against the Dragons in Sunday's Heineken Cup match after injury prevented him from any role in the weekend's incredible win away to Toulouse, and Hadden insisted he viewed Jackson's call-up as being geared towards gaining valuable experience more than displacing Phil Godman or Dan Parks in the Test squad.

The coach also stated that Gordon Ross – who was given permission to tour South Africa with his club Saracens next week – remained his third-choice, yet expects Jackson to play for the 'A' team, whose first game is against Italy on 27 February.

Hadden refused to rule out the possibility that Jackson could come into contention for a Six Nations debut were either Godman or Parks to be ruled out, however.

He said: "Given that Gordon (Ross] has not had a lot of game-time this year we felt that (going to South Africa] was a good opportunity for him. I explained to him that we were going to include Ruaridh Jackson, but that it didn't mean he had jumped above Gordon in the pecking order.

"It is still important to have Ruaridh in because he is a young talent with a lot of potential and part of the fast-tracking we want to do for Ruaridh is exposing him to situations like this.

"Given the number of stand-offs we've got, he's got to be in the frame – anything could happen – but primarily we're looking at him to get some A team experience at stand-off before he plays for Scotland. But who knows what will happen over the next three weeks. He is in on merit."

The speed of promotion may suggest Hadden has learned from the handling of another startling stand-off talent ten years ago, Chris Paterson, who was shuffled across the back division by Hadden at Edinburgh and Ian McGeechan with Scotland, exacerbating the dearth of stand-off talent. Hadden is clearly wasting no time in fast-tracking a player he first saw playing at Murrayfield.

"When I first saw him play – at the schools sevens at Murrayfield two years ago," he said, "I was impressed with the range of skills at his disposal. It was clear here was a young man with serious potential as a rugby player.

"It's disappointing he hasn't had more exposure at stand-off over the last couple of years, but, realistically, 2011 has got to be the target for him. There's nothing wrong with getting exposure to game-time, but the more he plays at stand-off the better for his development."