Caps can be a kick-start for Kennedy
TOURS tend to launch careers rather than end them and scrumhalf Sean Kennedy is hoping that his call-up to Gregor Townsend’s first squad will put the youngster back on the path to Scotland honours.
Kennedy is hopeful, too, that his surprise Test involvement, replacing the injured Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, does not bring a repeat of four years ago when he fell back through the trapdoor from the international scene into relative obscurity.
He was hailed as the next big thing when, behind Greig Laidlaw at Edinburgh, he was loaned to Glasgow as a 21-year-old in his first season of professional rugby and did enough in five games to attract Scott Johnson’s attention and win selection for the 2013 Six Nations training squad.
Yet that was as good as it got as his Test career went into reverse. He refuses to blame anyone for his struggles, but much of it was arguably down to being at Edinburgh at the wrong time.
‘It was great to be included (in 2013) but I guess since then it has been a bit up and down for me,’ said Kennedy. ‘I was at Glasgow at the time, which I enjoyed because I was a relatively young guy — I came into full-time rugby relatively late at 21.
‘But I went from Glasgow back to Edinburgh, where we didn’t have a coach at the time, so Duncan Hodge took over for the last few games of the season. Everything was changing.
‘Alan Solomons came in and tried to build from the ground up. I think he did a good job there but when you are trying to do that, you have a season or two where you strip everything back and we didn’t play the kind of rugby I like. I understand why we couldn’t at the time.
‘But in the last few seasons, especially the one just past, I was enjoying my rugby again. We did expand our game and, although it has been a tough season and we struggled to pick up wins, we were getting losing bonus points, so we weren’t miles away.
‘When we’ve had good days, like against Harlequins and Ulster for example, our backs have had a great time and really enjoyed the games.
‘But now, working with Mike Blair is really valuable. Ali Price and Henry Pyrgos have worked with him a lot at Glasgow, so to get the chance to pick Mike’s brain has been really good.
‘Ali was always a good player but over the last season he has stepped up and been consistently good for Glasgow and Scotland.
‘It’s the same for Henry — there’s something working over there for the nines and I think Mike is part of it.’