{"id":414144,"date":"2025-09-10T21:35:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/414144\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T21:35:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:35:20","slug":"i-sound-very-english-richardsons-terrifying-scotland-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/414144\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I sound very English’: Richardson’s ‘terrifying’ Scotland experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Fin Richardson says \u201ca baptism by fire is almost always a good thing\u201d, he is quick to add a caveat: \u201cMaybe not necessarily at the time, or the week before, sitting there shaking away, thinking \u2018is it really my turn already?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the situation facing the Glasgow<\/a> prop the day before Scotland\u2019s opening autumn Test against Fiji<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Their first-choice tighthead Zander Fagerson<\/a> was due to start in the No.3 jersey, but his wife Yasmine was about to give birth to twins \u2013 the couple\u2019s third and fourth children \u2013 and Fagerson had left the team\u2019s base to be with her in hospital.<\/p>\n

Richardson, who had joined the South American leg of Scotland\u2019s summer tour a few months previously to train with the squad as a development player, had yet to make his debut for Glasgow at that point.
In fact, the sum total of his senior rugby experience was a single game for Exeter in the Premiership Rugby Cup and 20 matches \u2013 only nine of them starts \u2013 for Cornish Pirates in the second-tier English Championship. No wonder he was nervous.<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

United Rugby Championship<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Glasgow <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sharks <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end Zander came back about four hours before kick-off but I was told if he didn\u2019t come back, I would be playing,\u201d Richardson recalls. \u201cTalk about baptism of fire. I was up the entire night trembling away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that was terrifying for me was I didn\u2019t know any of the players 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\u2019m being given 12 hours to figure it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I feel ready. 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

Colchester-born, Edinburgh-raised Richardson is an articulate, privately-educated law graduate who turns 27 next week, but is still making his way in the professional game.<\/p>\n

In the end he did earn international recognition before playing for Glasgow \u2013 via a 23-minute replacement outing for Scotland \u2018A\u2019 against Chile. That came a week before his Warriors bow against Scarlets<\/a> in the URC in late November.<\/p>\n

Two years previously he was still playing student rugby, part of the same successful Exeter University XV as new Edinburgh<\/a> centre Charlie McCaig<\/a>, which lifted the BUCS title in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 Chiefs \u2013 until I was almost 25 anyway,\u201d he said. \u201cI was just a student at university, doing law, playing rugby but only at collegiate level. So every step has felt like I am making a leap.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut past a certain point, you start getting used to taking those leaps. Every year 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 OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson, who played club rugby for Currie and Edinburgh Academicals before heading south to Exeter, hails from a rugby-mad family. His uncle Jeremy, a lock, was capped by Scotland<\/a> against South Africa<\/a> in 1994. His father Gus, a former Army commander in The Royal Scots regiment, was Scotland\u2019s first full-time team manager from 2004 to 2010.<\/p>\n

He may be a late developer in professional terms, but Richardson is catching up fast as he prepares for his second season with Glasgow under Franco Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started here, he didn\u2019t necessarily know all that much about me. It became my mission to show him that I was willing to work as hard as I needed to, to prove to him that he could trust me. I definitely think I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson made eight starts in the No.3 shirt last season, including successive away games against Leinster<\/a> in Dublin, including a URC semi-final.<\/p>\n

That culminated in a call-up to the Scotland senior squad for their summer tour to New Zealand<\/a> and Fiji. Richardson started the first, non-cap, match against the NZ Maori, a 29-26 win, and was rewarded with a Test debut as a replacement in the final match of the tour, a 41-12 victory over Samoa<\/a> in Auckland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had verbal diarrhoea the second I came off the pitch,\u201d he recalled. \u201cIt was a massive moment for me. While I sound very English, I grew up in Edinburgh, my dad was involved in the national set-up, so from quite a young age I grew up really idolising the Scotland squad. They were super-human in my household. Me and my brother were just massive fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my debut was like a get-to-the-top-of-the-hill-and-see-how-far-you\u2019ve-climbed moment. I finished the game and 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, 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

<\/p>\n

South Africa <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Japan <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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

Having achieved that goal, he is understandably keen to remain in Gregor Townsend\u2019s thoughts for an autumn programme that will see Scotland face USA, New Zealand, Argentina<\/a> and Tonga.<\/p>\n

With Fagerson missing at least the start of the season and Richardson\u2019s fellow former Chief Patrick Schickerling<\/a> also currently sidelined, he can expect to shoulder plenty of the tighthead burden with Warriors early on, with the Sharks<\/a> and Bulls<\/a> both visiting Scotstoun in their first five URC games before the international break.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, momentum has been very high and I need to keep that ball rolling now and keep the good performances coming, to show I deserve to keep going,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the positives for me is I will be playing a lot of rugby, whether I like it or not. But obviously I\u2019m very hungry for it. I\u2019m looking forward to getting in these performances. We\u2019ve got a few big games at the start of the year and I\u2019m raring to go, frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should that lead to another Scotland call and a first run-out in blue at the national stadium, expect plenty more waterworks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d he grins. \u201cI 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Fin Richardson says \u201ca baptism by fire is almost always a good thing\u201d, he is quick to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-414144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115182156208752913","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414144","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=414144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}