My whole family said it - ‘you’ve got to play for Scotland’
Sale winger Reed says it was an easy decision to switch allegiance from England and now he hopes to start on the wing against Wales in Six Nations
If and when Arron Reed wins his first Scotland cap no-one will feel happier than his granny, Christine.
Not surprisingly she has been banging a drum for the Sale Sharks winger since his childhood visits to her Borders home. The 24-year-old may speak with an accent which is more Coronation Street than Take the High Road but his Scottish roots run deep. His gran is from Coldstream, his father, Allan, was born in Scotland and his uncle Steven used to play for Edinburgh.
Chester-born Reed even has a Scottish girlfriend so when the call came from Gregor Townsend he didn’t hesitate to say yes, despite having played previously for England at age-grade level and actually scoring a try against Scotland in the Under-20 Six Nations Championship five years ago.
“Gregor got in touch two years ago to let me know I was on his radar and around December time he came down to Manchester and said he was seriously looking at me because I was playing quite well at Sale,” explained Reed, who trained this week with his new Scotland teammates for the first time.
“A few days before selection he called me up and said: ‘We want you in the squad so talk to your family and make a decision’. But it was a no-brainer for me to take the chance when it was there.
“My whole family are Scottish anyway, so they were like ‘obviously, you’ve got to play for Scotland’. Even my girlfriend is Scottish and all of her side of the family are Scottish. They’re from Isle of Skye – she’s Fiona Lockhart so that’s a pretty Scottish name isn’t it?
“My dad was born in Edinburgh, my gran was from Coldstream and every summer we’d go up to Scotland and see them, and I always knew my Scottish side was there and it was pretty influential through my childhood.
“Every time I go up to my gran’s she asks me ‘when are you going to play for Scotland?’ so she was always very keen for me to play. My dad’s a proud Scotsman as well so he was obviously keen and it’s always been talked about, so hopefully I can make them very proud and play for Scotland one day.”
Reed’s strengths are his speed and footwork and he has five Premiership tries to his name this season. He will play for Sale against Gloucester at Kingsholm tomorrow afternoon before rejoining the Scotland squad to prepare for the Six Nations opener against Wales in Cardiff the following weekend.
With Darcy Graham ruled out for the first two rounds of the championship, Reed finds himself vying with Glasgow pair Kyle Steyn and Kyle Rowe for the right-wing berth, with Duhan van der Merwe likely to start on the left. He sees himself as similar to Graham and at 5ft 8in and just over 13 stone he is close in size to the Hawick man, who is nursing a quad injury.
“The way he plays is quite similar to me and he’s similar size and speed, it makes you think you don’t have to be massive to play on the wing in international rugby,” said Reed. “You can be a … not a little lad, but maybe a medium-sized lad and still do well, and use your speed and footwork to play in an international side.
“I used to do the 100 and 200 metres at school and pretty much won it every time. When I was 16 my 100m PB was like 11 seconds dead, but I haven’t done it since then. Hopefully I’m a bit quicker now.”
When he announced his Six Nations squad last week, Townsend was asked about the necessity of treating nationality as a “fluid concept” and the head coach was up front about using all avenues open to him to find Scottish-qualified players.
More than half his squad were born outside Scotland, including Reed, and a quick scan at the teamlines for the 2019 Under-20 Six Nations match between the auld enemies reveals the fluidity at work. Not only did Reed play and score for England in their 45-7 win at Franklin’s Gardens but so too did Cam Redpath. Both are now part of Townsend’s Six Nations squad. Reed struggled to recall the match when asked but he’s clearly proud of his Scottish heritage and ambitious to play at Test level.
“It’s every lad’s dream isn’t it to play international rugby, so obviously when the chance comes you have to take it and hopefully I’ll get picked in the squad now at some point,” explained Reed.
“The reason I played England under-18s and 20s was because I was playing down in England, and at that age you just go with the flow really.
“I don’t think it feels too different now and when you get the chance to play international rugby you’ve got to take that chance. Being here [with the Scotland squad] is making me a better player already. The way Sale play it’s more kick and compete, whereas here it’s more about playing with the ball in your hands and that’s really good for me.
“The next step is to play, but I don’t know what will happen. I don’t expect to play straight away, but I also want to push and try and get in the squad. I don’t want to just be happy to be here.
“I want to be happy, of course, but I want to also try and play. I just have to train as hard as I can, show myself and hopefully they will select me in a squad at some point.”
Gregor got in touch with me two years ago to let me know I was on his radar Arron Reed