That was the moment the Exeter University law graduate began to believe that a career in professional rugby might well be on the cards.<\/p>\n
He represented Scotland A against Chile last November, six days before making his first Glasgow appearance in the URC against Scarlets. The initial calf injury sustained by Fagerson then saw Richardson deployed more regularly at the back end of last season, leading to a place on the Scotland tour to New Zealand and Fiji where a non-capped outing against Maori All Blacks was followed by a first proper cap against Samoa.<\/p>\n
As the son of the former Scotland team manager, Guy, Richardson grew up, in his words, \u2018idolising\u2019 the national team, making that debut at Eden Park a real poignant affair. \u00a0\u201cLooking back, if you had asked me 14 months ago, before I went on the summer tour [to South America] what my goal was, I would probably have said to make my debut for Glasgow and that would probably have been it for the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut once I got here and settled in and started playing games, very quickly my focus shifted. I could feel the momentum was high and was asking myself, \u2018what else could I bring that is going to make this my best year of rugby yet?\u2019 I did start thinking, \u2018I wonder if there\u2019s any shot of me getting on [this year\u2019s] summer tour?\u2019 and so getting the call was amazing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I got the cap, just going on the tour was the goal. I was over the moon to be considered and then selected, and I think that confidence helped in the last few games of the season. I felt I was starting because I\u2019d proved not just to Franco [Smith<\/strong>] but the national coaches that they could trust me to put in good performances.<\/p>\n \u201c[Making my debut] was a massive moment for me. I had verbal diarrhoea the second I came off the pitch! While I sound very English, I grew up in Edinburgh and my dad was involved in the national set-up. So, from quite a young age I grew up idolising the Scotland squad. They were super-human in my household. Me and my brother were just massive fans.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like a \u2018get to the top of the hill and see how far you\u2019ve climbed\u2019 moment. I finished the game and I was looking around thinking \u2018I can\u2019t believe I have just played for the national team\u2019. It always seemed just so unattainable as a goal. It was a very introspective moment for me, thinking \u2018look at how much work I\u2019ve done to get here, look at how many selections I\u2019ve been through, how many times I\u2019ve worked myself into the floor with blood, sweat and tears to get to this point\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I was very proud of myself, and very proud of everyone who has sacrificed so much time for me to get there. I spent the whole week before the game thinking about and that second the final whistle went, I was in floods of tears.\u201d<\/p>\n Dreaming of Murrayfield \u2013 second time lucky\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Regular rugby over the next month or so will enhance his chances of remaining in the squad for the autumn nations series. So, how will he handle playing at Murrayfield?<\/p>\n \u201cI need to keep that ball rolling now and keep the good performances coming, to show I deserve to keep going. One of the positives for me will be I will be playing a lot of rugby, whether I like it or not. I was crying after the game against Samoa. I\u2019m going to be in floods if I\u2019m hearing that second verse of Flower of Scotland in Murrayfield. I\u2019d be very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n That moment nearly arrived in unusual circumstances last year. \u201cI very nearly played in the last autumn Tests actually when Zander was off with his wife having twins,\u201d he recalled. \u201cHe came back about four hours before kick-off but I was told if he didn\u2019t come back, I would be playing. Talk about baptism of fire!<\/p>\n \u201cI was up the entire night trembling away. I didn\u2019t know any of the players all that well, apart from the Glasgow guys. I hadn\u2019t been part of the system before. I don\u2019t know the way they play and I had been given 12 hours to figure it out. But now I feel much more comfortable and it feels like I\u2019m in a place where the pressure is on me to perform, not to learn. There will always be learnings but the pressure is on the application of that learning, not the understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n Richardson admits he\u2019s a bit of a late developer at this level but believes he is finally beginning to fulfil the potential hinted at earlier in his playing days. \u201cI am turning 27 next week. I think the momentum has always been quite high for me because I didn\u2019t start doing rugby professionally \u2013 even though I was in the senior academy at Exeter Chiefs \u2013 until I was almost 25.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just a student at university, doing law, playing rugby but only at British collegiate level. So every step has felt like I am making a leap. But past a certain point, you start getting used to taking those leaps. Every year it feels I\u2019m coming in and everything\u2019s faster and everyone\u2019s more physical, and that transition is always very difficult. As long as I can keep adapting to that change, I think I\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That was the moment the Exeter University law graduate began to believe that a career in professional rugby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,85185,72005,918,8979,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-413754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-divi","10":"tag-fin-richardson","11":"tag-glasgow","12":"tag-glasgow-warriors","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}