Rugby: Pumas past boosts Ben

Published on Wednesday 25 November 2009 08:35

BEN CAIRNS has pledged to draw on the experiences of his international rugby debut when he returns to the Test arena against Argentina at Murrayfield on Saturday.

The 24-year-old Edinburgh centre is becoming an authority on the Pumas having faced them on tour in his first two top-level assignments last year and says: "I definitely think it is a help that, on returning to the side for my seventh international, I'll be playing Argentina for a third time. It's also a massive boost that in the second Test out there Scotland got a win. They'll be stuffy up front and disruptive, making the battle for possession a real fight. If we can win that contact it will go a long way towards getting the ball we need to play the rugby we want."

Debuting against the Argentineans is becoming a habit for ex-pupils of Edinburgh's Royal High School, like Cairns.

His former class-mate, Alan Macdonald, is the latest to step up and with a ringing endorsement from Cairns who says of the player who will become the 17th Scotland cap on Edinburgh Rugby's books: "Alan has been awesome for the past couple of years with Edinburgh. It's up to him now to take his club and Scotland A form into the national jersey."

Playing side-by-side has been a common occurrence for the pair over the past 17 years since they started mini-rugby together and, but for the work of Murrayfield's medical staff, whom Cairns praised, the chance to take that partnership up to Test level might have been delayed.

"My leg got caught in Edinburgh's last match against the Dragons and I tweaked my medial ligament. I feared then I could be unavailable for the entire Autumn series. I knew, too, it was going to be hard to get back in the way the team were playing but that's as it should be at national level. Fortunately the A international with Tonga last Friday gave me an opportunity and the leg was no problem."

As for Macdonald he admits Saturday's are suddenly going to get busier. "I get frustrated watching matches so I sat at home by myself with the television on when Scotland beat Australia.

"I was really chuffed and excited when I was taken aside by Andy Robinson and told I'd be playing and it's taken a while to sink in."

Macdonald, the current Edinburgh player of the year, will be hoping to emulate his achievement of scoring a try for Scotland against Argentina at the under-19 World Championships a few years ago.

Scotland team (to face Argentina at Murrayfield, Saturday, 2.30pm): R Lamont (Toulon); S Lamont (Scarlets), A Grove (Worcester), B Cairns (Edinburgh), T Evans (Glasgow); P Godman (Edinburgh), C Cusiter (Glasgow, capt); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), M Low (Glasgow), N Hines (Leinster), A Kellock (Glasgow), A Strokosch (Gloucester), A MacDonald (Edinburgh), J Beattie (Glasgow). Replacements: D Hall (Glasgow), K Traynor (Edinburgh), J White (Clermont Auvergne), R Vernon (Glasgow), R Lawson (Gloucester), C Paterson (Edinburgh), N De Luca (Edinburgh).

• The Predictor: Guess the outcome of Scotland v Argentina