Borderer Darcy Graham welcomes revival of Scotland rugby sevens team
Hawick’s Darcy Graham has welcomed the return of the Scotland rugby sevens team he used to play for.
The 28-year-old scored 29 tries in 49 games across nine tournaments for Scotland at sevens in 2017 and 2018 ahead of making the first of 50 appearances to date at the XV-a-side game.
Scotland ceased to have a sevens squad of their own in 2022, however, after merging, together with Wales, with Great Britain’s.
A Scotland squad to compete at the short-sided game invented in Melrose in 1883 is now being revived, though, with Selkirk’s Ciaran Beattie as head coach, and Graham is delighted to see the team he regards as a stepping stone to his 34-try international career making a comeback.
“It’s class that we are bringing Scotland’s sevens back,” said the Edinburgh right-winger.
“It was massive for my development. It was huge for me. I don’t think I’d be here right now if it weren’t for sevens.
“I learnt so much from it.
“It’s good to see them bringing that programme back. We’ll see the benefit of that.”
Graham is one of several current Scottish internationals to have started out at sevens before graduating to the full monty, with the others including former sevens teammates Blair Kinghorn, George Horne and Magnus Bradbury.
“You look at the squad now, at how many boys have come through, and there’s me, Blair, George Horne and Maggie played a bit.
“There are a lot of boys in the team that played sevens in the World Series.
“It can only be a good thing, especially when we’ve only got two pro teams. It can turn into our third pro team and we can just chuck some young boys in there and go and see how they get on because it’s a different level out there.
“The athletes are incredible. You have to defend so much space and you learn a lot about yourself and you do learn a lot out there. I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am without that programme.”
Scotland’s revived seven programme, along with GB’s, is already operating full-time and it’s based at the Oriam sports performance centre at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, with six contracted Scottish players – Damien Hoyland, Finn Callaghan, Matt Davidson, Roan Frostwick, Jacob Henry and Josh Radcliffe.
See also …