TRY HERO HARRIS DRIVEN TO BE THE FLY GUY FOR SCOTLAND
Star turn against French has centre dreaming of a seat on plane to Japan
ASPARKLING try for Scotland, a man-of-the-match performance, who knows if it will be enough to seal a place on the plane to Japan for Chris Harris?
For so long the forgotten man in Scotland’s running order of centres, Harris grabbed the opportunity presented by Saturday’s visit of France to BT Murrayfield to state his case. If timing is everything, Harris at least exhibited that he has that nose for a chance.
It came with the accuracy of his run to grab Greig Laidlaw’s pass and breach the French rearguard to score. It came also with the timing of his performance that may force Gregor Townsend to shuffle his options for next month’s World Cup.
‘I know what I have to do to get a ticket to Japan and that one performance may not be enough,’ Harris reflected in the aftermath of a Scotland victory that did much to erase the memory of the abject showing in Nice seven days earlier. ‘It would mean everything to get on that plane and play in the World Cup as that has been my goal and my dream. If I don’t make it, I will be absolutely gutted. The fear of missing is part of what’s been driving me.
‘The coaches are giving nothing away over who is going to the World Cup. I’m not aware if the final squad has been selected or indeed the positions they are unsure of.
‘They are not going to tell us that because they want to ensure there’s that added edge to our play. Everyone is still fighting and wants to play.
‘There is pressure and I have to deal with it in my own way. Not everyone can go to the World Cup. I feel like I’ve put myself in a good position though and I have been training well and working hard.’
Harris’s second-half score was reward for the hard work put in on the tedious training camps that have occupied Scotland over the summer months.
It was started by Ryan Wilson off the back of the scrum. Hamish Watson made more hard yards, with Laidlaw picking the ball up when he went to ground.
Rather than keeping it tight and passing to another forward, the Scots caught the French by surprise. Harris ran a superb line and had built up a real head of steam by the time he took the ball from his captain to crash over.
It was a move painstakingly worked on in training time and time again over the summer and executed perfectly on the big stage. No wonder everybody joined in the celebrations.
‘That try was not made up on the spot,’ Laidlaw said. ‘The forwards did the good work and Chris stepped up. He is a big, strong boy who made a big hole in the French defence and all I had to do was throw my pass to him to score under the posts.’
For Harris, the try was the highlight of a Scotland career that has failed to sparkle so far. Perhaps now is the perfect time.
‘I’ve had a rocky start to games in the past but I just had to forget about that and kick on,’ said the nine-times capped Gloucester centre.
‘As for my try, I was running from pretty deep and I was just waiting for the ball before Greig saw me — and he picked me out. You could see with the celebrations that we are all in this together, everyone just wants to win for Scotland.’
This was a vital victory after the 32-3 loss to France in Nice in which Scotland barely raised themselves above abject. The seven days that have passed since have obviously been occupied by hard work and no little soul-searching.
‘Every player was motivated last week and every player was motivated this week,’ Harris said. ‘It
was just a bad day at the office. We got a bit of kick up the backside on Tuesday when we returned to training and that kicked us on as a group.
‘The players were upset by the performance they put in over in Nice and we were all desperate to put a few wrongs right.
‘We were fired up emotionally to react — and i think we did that. Every coach had their say last week, they all said we had to be better, but we knew that.’
Will his star-man performance be enough to secure harris a place in Townsend’s travelling squad? Well, he was so good against France that those up against him for one of the four World Cup centre spots must be getting nervous.
Duncan Taylor looks like the only one of the six centres battling for the four World Cup places who looks certain to go on the plane to Japan.
That leaves harris, huw Jones, Rory hutchinson, Peter horne — whose intercepted pass gifted the French a try after two minutes — and sam Johnson, who hasn’t played in any of the two warm-up games due to injury, desperately fearing being one of the two left behind.
if a player is only as good as his last game, then perhaps harris will emerge successfully from the pack. he defended well and was also involved in the build-up work that led to scotland’s opening try through sean Maitland just before the break.
he would like another run-out against a powerful Georgian side in Tbilisi on saturday — the final game before Townsend picks his 31-man World Cup squad. Perhaps, after all, he has earned his chance.