Tommy Seymour says he’s determined to repay the faith of Scotland coach Scott Johnson after being called into the starting side for Saturday’s Calcutta Cup clash with England at Murrayfield.
It looked as if Max Evans would be on the right wing after coming on for the injured Sean Maitland during Scotland’s lacklustre 28-6 loss away to Ireland in their Six Nations opener last weekend.
New Zealand-born flyer Maitland was subsequently ruled out of the rest of the tournament with knee and ankle injuries.
But rather than start the experienced Evans against England, Johnson has instead opted to give Glasgow back Seymour just his sixth cap and first in the Six Nations this weekend.
“Johnno has made the call and I’m incredibly happy that I’ve been given my first Six Nations start,” the 25-year-old Johnson said on Friday.
“But I thought Max played well when he came on in Dublin and if he had started I wouldn’t have been surprised. He’s a top quality rugby player with a huge number of caps for Scotland.”
Seymour is one of three changes made by Australia coach Johnson, with the most notable his decision to drop captain Kelly Brown from the matchday 23 and give a Test debut to openside flanker Chris Fusaro.
Meanwhile Seymour is joined in the back division by Matt Scott, the Edinburgh centre replacing Duncan Taylor.
Seymour insisted that despite a convincing defeat in Dublin, there was every chance the team could raise their game against England, just as so many Scotland teams had done before, in what will be the 132nd edition of international rugby union’s oldest fixture.
“A week can be a long time in rugby, but by the same token we don’t have much time with the six-day turnaround to dwell on the things that have happened last weekend,” Seymour said.