Will Hurd never met the woman who qualifies him to play for Scotland but her spirit was undoubtedly felt in the profound and emotional embrace that followed the occasion of his recent international debut.
Sylvia Bruce from Stirling passed away when the tighthead prop was still young but her Caledonian influence endured through her daughter, Sharon, who in turn shared it with her son.
Hurd's grandmother’s heritage enabled him to turn out for Scotland at the World Rugby under-20 Championship before Covid intervened, stalling his international progress.
Opportunity knocked again for the Leicester Tiger earlier this year when Gregor Townsend named him in his squad for the Six Nations only for an injury to force him out before he could pull on the Scotland shirt.
Townsend, though, offered the 25-year-old another crack for this summer’s tour of the Americas, a chance Hurd was grateful to grasp.
Waiting for him at the side of the pitch following his international debut against Canada in Ottawa a fortnight ago was a small coterie of family and friends who had travelled over to share the experience with him.
The tears he shared with his mum told the story of the journey it had taken to reach this point.
“It was immense,” he said of finally making his Scotland debut.
“There was a bit of a setback at Six Nations time as I was meant to be in the squad and that got pulled out from under my feet. So it’s been a long time coming.
“My mum is the Scottish connection as her family were from Stirling. She’s always pushed me for the whole Scotland stuff and I’ve always loved that angle so since I’ve been young it’s been a dream of mine to wear the jersey.
“When that became a reality, just seeing her after the game I got extremely emotional seeing how proud she was of me. That made it all worth it. It’s been a dream since I was younger so that eye-to-eye with her post-match after Canada was indescribable in terms of emotions. It was brilliant.
“My mum’s family passed away, unfortunately, when I was young so I never got to meet most of them but mum made sure I kept my Scottish roots close to me. She’s immensely proud of her Scottish roots and she’s always embedded it in me to make sure I’m proud to be Scottish.
“She wasn’t expecting to make it to the game but then she felt she couldn’t miss it for the world. So she came out on the Thursday, saw the game on the Saturday then flew home the next day. It was brilliant to have her there.
“I had my mum, dad, sister, and my girlfriend and her mum, so it was nice to have a big group and they were obviously all immensely proud of me. There were six or seven there so it was a good little army of my close family and friends.”
Tighthead has been a problem position for Scotland for some time now, an issue exacerbated by WP Nel’s recent retirement. But Hurd knows he still needs to show he deserves to be part of the solution, starting with a strong performance against Chile on Saturday.
“Coming here now I do feel I’m ready to make the step up to international level,” he added.
“This tour is a brilliant time to experience it with a mixed bunch of people. There were 10 debutants in the Canada game so coming now is a brilliant time for me to get my foot in the door. There is not the competition so there are plenty of opportunities for me to step in and take my role.
“As a tighthead, the scrum is my bread and butter, so I need to make sure that's locked down and I’m getting positive impacts out of that.
“I like to think I’m quite a good defensive player as well, so making sure I can make an impact there - good contacts, winning collisions, that sort of thing. That’s the sort of focus over the next couple of weeks, and then giving the team an impact when I can.
“I’d like to play for Scotland as many times as possible. But I don’t want to get complacent just because there aren’t many tightheads and the opportunity is there.
"For me it’s just doing what I’m doing and the coaches are happy with what they’re seeing. Take it game by game.
"WP Nel played into his late thirties so if I can come even close to half of how long he played for, I’d be doing pretty well.”
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