Phillips knows precisely what needs to be done
NO one knows the importance of the one percenters like Scotland’s Callum Phillips, on or off the field.
The 25-year-old and his teammates will need to get everything right to beat Tonga tomorrow and there’s little tolerance either in his job at the UK’s National Nuclear Lab- oratory. Phillips works in the electrical and instrumentation department and precision is key to making sure everything runs smoothly.
“I work in a building where there’s a rig and we just look after all the instruments on the rig,” he said. “We just recalibrate things on the rig to check they’re working as they should, so when they’re running tests they’re working to a tolerance of a few per cent.”
It’s all in a day’s work before he heads to training to further his rugby league ambitions.
Phillips spent 2017 at Workington Town and will switch to rivals Whitehaven this year, playing in the semi-professional Championship 1 competition.
He has the unenviable task of tackling Jason Taumalolo tomorrow, but he has no plans to take a backward step in his side’s World Cup opener at Barlow Park.
Phillips has four international caps under his belt, including two at the Four Nations last year, but said he’d learned from his brother Brett, who played in 2013, what to expect at the World Cup.
“He said just to relax and not put too much pressure on yourself, because it is a big jump with the people around ... but at the end of the day you’ve just got to play your normal game,” he said.
“That’s the harder side of it, the mental side of it.”
Scotland coach Steve McCormack is not expecting any changes to his 17 named earlier in the week.