Assuming he gets through Saturday’s match against France in St Etienne unscathed, Sione Tuipulotu is pretty much guaranteed to be one of the 33 players named in Scotland’s World Cup squad next Wednesday.
The Australian-born 26-year-old has been a revelation since moving north from Yamaha Júbilo in Japan to join Glasgow Warriors during the summer of 2021. Qualifying to play for Scotland through his Greenock-born grandmother, he made his international debut against Tonga just a few months after his arrival on these shores and has now established himself as a near automatic pick in the No 12 jersey with 17 caps to date, offering a mouth-watering blend of powerful running, clever kicking, neat ball-handling and robust defence.
He and his centre partner, Huw Jones, were the only two Scots named in the official 2023 Six Nations team of the tournament, while he has formed a close on and off field bond with his stand-off, Finn Russell, with whom he shares both a fondness for rather outlandish (by rugby standards) fashion and a cavalier instinct to playing the game.
Tuipulotu’s rapid rise in stature within the squad – and a shift from head coach Gregor Townsend towards encouraging players to be more free-thinking – was highlighted by his selection as vice-captain, alongside Russell as captain, for last weekend’s match at Murrayfield.
Given the Scots recovered from 21-3 down at half-time to secure their biggest ever comeback win, that experiment can be counted as a success, even if the expected return of regular skipper Jamie Ritchie from a hamstring niggle this weekend means that Tuipulotu is likely to step back from the officer class and re-join the infantry.
That won’t concern the laid-back midfielder much because he’s quite happy focussing on his own game and only adding his tuppence in team huddles when he feels he has something worthwhile to contribute.
“It was good fun being vice-captain and a massive honour, but, to be honest, I didn’t think about it much earlier in the week because with Gillie [Grant Gilchrist] as the other vice-captain I was really third in line, so it was a pretty chill week for me with Finn and Gillie doing most of the talking,” he reasons.
“It was the same during the game when not much changed compared to what I usually do. I like to make a couple of defensive points in the huddle, but mostly Finn and Gillie did the talking which was quite good for me because I could catch my breath.
“Everyone knows how much I love playing alongside Finn. We get along pretty well off the field, so it was easy just to take that onto the field.”
“I’ve never been involved in World Cup preparation before so this is all quite new to me,” he adds. “It’s a high-pressure environment with everyone competing and trying to do their best to get on the plane.
“When the games start rolling around, like these big games against France, that kind of takes your mind off everything. You’ve got the challenge ahead of you at the weekend and you’re not looking much further down the road than that.
At this stage of the World Cup build-up, there is a case to be made for wrapping all the team's most important players in cotton-wool, but Tuipulotu believes that Townsend is right to take a contrary view to that this weekend.
“There’s always that shadow of doubt at the back of your mind, in terms of trying to stay healthy, but the other side of it is trying to push yourself to the limit to get yourself into the best physical condition for when the big games roll around and matter at the World Cup,” he reasons.
“You just try not to think about it,” he adds. “I always treat every game as the next step and the chance to push yourself. You don’t want to cheat and save yourself for the next week. You need to push yourself in every game and hope that the rugby Gods will look after you.
“Every time I come into training or into this environment, I try to be better than I was in the last campaign, so I want to push on to the World Cup and have a better campaign than I did in the Six Nations.
“These last eight weeks of training have been so good for my body. After the Six Nations I carried a few niggles into the last stretch of the season with Glasgow, so I am just grateful to have had the time to get my body right. It’s in a good place now and I do feel I’m the fittest I have been since moving to Scotland. All you can do then is try to translate it into the game.
“It was a good first hit out on the weekend there, I felt like I needed to get those minutes under my belt having not played rugby for two or three months, and now I’m looking forward to going again this coming Saturday.”
