Seymour tips Steyn to nab Japan place
● Winger is only five tries short of Scotland scoring record but his sole focus is on claiming a World Cup place
Scotland winger Tommy Seymour says uncapped World Cup hopeful Kyle Steyn has fitted in “seamlessly” to the training squad and is pushing hard for a spot on the plane to Japan come September.
South Africa-born Steyn has had an amazing year, playing in the first four World Sevens Series events of 2018/19 for the Scotland Sevens team to take his cap tally up to six and then joining Glasgow Warriors as cover in February.
He played regularly in the final few months of the campaign, scoring a brilliant try in the Guinness Pro14 semi-final play-off triumph over Ulster.
And now the 25-yearold centre/winger is close to a full XVS cap with Seymour saying of his less experienced team-mate: “He’s acquitted himself well in training so far, he’s a great guy to have around the place and has fitted in seamlessly.
“Having played with him at Glasgow I know what he brings, he’s really talented, very calm on the field, he’s got a good head and doesn’t get flustered. He brings a lot in defence and in attack in terms of physicality and his reading of the game.
“Kyle’s done what I thought he’d do [in the Scotland camp]: trained really well, fitted in and is always asking questions.”
Tommy Seymour would love to break the Scotland try scoring record at the World Cup later this year, but at the minute the 31-year-old is solely focused on making sure of his place in the squad that flies to Japan.
This week the extended 44-man Scottish squad have been back in training at Oriam on the outskirts of Edinburgh following a two-week break.
They are now into their second block of training ahead of matches home and away against France and Georgia in August and early September.
During that run of games head coach Gregor Townsend, below, will select the 31-man squad that will head to he showpiece event in Asia.
Seymour, 31, has scored 19 tries in 50 appearances for his country to date, and sits alongside Stuart Hoggin being only five short of the record for Scotland held by the legendary “Flying Scotsman” Ian Smith and 1990 Grand Slam hero Tony Stanger with 24 each.
Seymour, the Glasgow Warriors winger, could get above the 20 mark and nearer to the holy grail of 25 during the warm-up Tests but, with Hogg, Sean Maitland, Darcy Graham, Blair Kinghorn, Byron Mcguigan and Kyle Steyn all alongside him competing for places in the back three, Seymour is currently thinking only about making the World Cup squad.
“I wouldn’t say I focus on it [the try record], but it’d be really nice to have,” he said.
“I’m not going to sit here and say I’ve never thought about it and of course it’s something you could only have dreamed of doing when you were young so I’d love to push for it.
“For me right now the focus really has to be in putting in training performances that put me in the right spot with the coaches and to make sure I am selected for the warm-up games.
“The competition is incredibly fierce in the back three. We’re pushing each other really well and luckily there’s a great collective mindset to do that. If I find myself on the park in Japan I’d obviously love to be scoring tries.
“I’m really happy with the way I ended the season. With Glasgow we put in a lot of good performances towards that latter third. I was really happy to be a part of that. I felt really good, the best I’ve felt in a while I think. I would never have chosen to get the rib injury as I did against Wales in the Six Nations, but that obviously gave me time and the opportunity to get some other niggles and other bits and pieces fixed with my body.
“It was great and to be back in and ready to go after a fourweek block of nothing [during and after the Six Nations] was probably good for me towards the end of the season.”
During the first three weeks of the World Cup preparation camp Scotland trained in Inverness, at Oriam and in Portugal.
The players were then off from 6 to 21 July to recharge the batteries ahead of a big period leading into the warmup Tests, the first of which is on Saturday 17 August in Nice against France. “It was great to get a couple of weeks off after the first block which was very tough,” Seymour said.
“It was lovely to get my head out of rugby for a little bit.
“You watch yourself a little bit [in terms of nutrition and fitness during the time off] because you don’t want to undo the work you’ve just put in.
“We knew we were coming back in on Monday and that we’d be tested at the start and after the progression of the first three weeks the coaches would be expecting to see good results, so you always keep everything ticking over, but it is important to kind of get away and really take yourself
BATTLE ROYAL
“The competition is incredibly fierce in the back three. We’re pushing each other really well and luckily there’s a great collective mindset to do that”
TOMMY SEYMOUR
out of rugby for a bit. I went in and did a couple of short sessions with the Glasgow boys [during the time off ], just to see some faces and that was that, the rest of the time was spent just trying to relax and get right before getting back to it.
“Now we are back as a group the focus is shifting in the next three weeks to more about team structures and things like that, the things we’ll be getting into place for the warm-up games as they’re fast approaching.
“Block one was a lot more of the base conditioning and there was plenty of structure involved in that, but there will be a shift in mindset towards game preparation now.
“It’s a really positive mood just now in the camp, the boys are getting the first couple of days’ niggles out of the body and, as we progress, the intensity of match preparations will increase.
“We’re in a really good spot.”