Rugby World Cup 2011: Odd man out Low vows to bounce back after dispiriting World Cup

NEW Zealand has been a great hive of passion and excitement since the Rugby World Cup kicked off six weeks ago, but as the country now prepares for the final, the one Scotland internationalist who was as close to the action as possible without actually playing is delighted to be watching it on television in Glasgow.

Moray Low, the 26-year-old Warriors prop, was one of the 30 players doing cartwheels, metaphorically, when named in Andy Robinson’s World Cup squad in August, but the delight turned sour when he arrived in the Land of the Long White Cloud and found himself handed a watching brief.

A training, watching, training, watching, training, watching, training and watching brief to be more precise. He was the only player in the squad who was never called into the matchday 22, Robinson making numerous changes to his side throughout the four-match pool run but sticking with Euan Murray and Geoff Cross as his tightheads. Alasdair Dickinson was always the bench preference as he provides cover, in theory at least, for both sides of the scrum, while Low is strictly a tighthead. The sizeable ex-Lossiemouth High School pupil, now 19st 6lbs, watched on, in training kit or grey suit, messages from home reminding him that he was lucky to be part of the World Cup experience. He finally got to expend some energy on the field on semi-final weekend, albeit in the colours of his former club Aberdeen Grammar School FPs on Saturday, and duly spent the last ten minutes of that kicking his heels after being yellow-carded. It is pleasing, therefore, to find Low in good humour as he reflected on his first 70 minutes of rugby for some time.

“Yellow cards eh?” he said with a wry smile. “It was just one of those things. We had been warned a few times and a maul went down. I was on top and the referee thought it was me, but it’s the way it goes. Thankfully, we still won the game.

“But just getting 70 minutes to run around was brilliant. I didn’t see it as a drop-down at all [going from the World Cup amid 60,000 at Eden Park to Raeburn Place and a hundred or so] because after training for weeks and weeks, running between cones all day, it was great to just play a game of rugby.

“I played in the World Cup warm-up match against Italy but that is all I’ve had since the end of last season, and I enjoyed it immensely.”

The World Cup experience was sobering enough for those in the Scotland squad who did play, the tournament affording a lesson in how effort, training and commitment are only part of the challenge. Quality skills, concentration and finishing ability under pressure are the other crucial components, and the Scots fell short in these areas at crucial moments. But what lasting effects might it have on the player who didn’t play?

“I won’t lie,” Low said. “It was hard, to be out there in fantastic shape and feeling great after a whole summer of training, and not playing; sitting in the stand for every game not even stripped. It was tough. But I had to remain positive. I think it can be easy to go into your shell a bit in that situation and feel distant from the squad, but that only makes it easier for the coaches not to pick you and I wasn’t going to do that.

“It was still a great experience out there and I’ll take a lot from it. Being part of the World Cup and seeing the boys running out just made me think: ‘I want to play in that. I want to prove that I am good enough to be part of that the next time the team is selected. I want to be there.’ And that comes down to what I do now, at Glasgow. If I’m honest there were times when we were in New Zealand that I thought ‘I’d rather be in Glasgow’. After the squad was picked for the Georgia game and then for the Argentina game and I knew I wasn’t going to be play at all, you realise that the only way you’re going to change the coaches’ minds is to get back playing well for Glasgow.

“But in New Zealand I had to put those thoughts aside and help the guys prepare for the Test matches, and I was glad at the end that that got noticed by the coaches. That’s my character anyway – you’ve got to be positive in a team environment.”

What might have appeared to be a firmly closed door for Low in New Zealand is not so. Euan Murray was selected despite being unavailable for Sundays, which was controversial, but perhaps more questionable was the fact that Murray had spent most of the summer injured. Yet, when he did play Murray showed why Robinson rates him above everyone else with fine performances against Georgia and England.

But he is 31, has suffered from the trials of front-row play and Scotland’s second and third games in the RBS Six Nations, with Wales and France, are on Sundays. Geoff Cross, the Edinburgh prop, is working supremely hard to make himself the next in line, but he knows Low is breathing down his neck, while the conveyor belt of tighthead talent in Scotland remains worryingly slow.

“I don’t think about that, Euan’s unavailability on Sundays or Geoff’s development,” Low said. “I just know that when I am consistent I have the ability to be the best tighthead in Scotland, and that’s my focus.

“The World Cup was frustrating but it was also a huge motivation, in showing me what I have to do to get on that stage. There is nothing major wrong with my game. I just have to work harder and perform consistently well, starting with Glasgow.

“I’ve got a big challenge there with Mike Cusack doing a great job in his first few games, but that’s brilliant for me. Competition motivates you more every day and it’s up to me to respond now. I want to play for Scotland and believe I can, and not be sitting in the stands at the next World Cup, but I have to earn it with Glasgow now.”

A World Cup always raises the bar, and in one area where Scotland craves more competition the signs are that an otherwise disappointing tournament may yield a positive legacy.