Sutherland: Club uncertainty won't hinder World Cup prep
Scotland prop Rory Sutherland aims to have his club future resolved before the World Cup but insists the uncertainty won’t hinder his preparations for the tournament.
The 30-year-old loosehead was listed as ‘unattached’ on Gregor Townsend’s 33-man squad list for the tournament, having left Ulster at the end of last season.
The Belfast-based province offered the Lions front-rower a short-term deal last October after the demise of his former club Worcester Warriors.
Sutherland, whose wife Tammy is expecting their third child any day now, admits he would prefer to return to Scotland, having endured a turbulent period living away from his family while at Ulster.
Glasgow, who have fellow Scotland squad loosehead Jamie Bhatti on their books, were previously interested in bringing the former Edinburgh prop home at the time Worcester were wound up.
But Sutherland, who started Scotland’s first warm-up Test against Italy and won his 25th cap as a replacement against France in Saint-Etienne last Saturday, is keeping his options open.
“I would like to stay in Scotland and I’ve made that clear, so we’ll see what happens,” he said. “Me and my wife are trying to be very open-minded about it, trying to broaden our horizons and take everything into consideration.
“With a young family, I’d obviously rather have a contract and know what I’m doing and be settled. But it’s one of those things you can’t control. The only thing I can control is playing well, and hopefully by doing that, it will take care of a better contract.
“These warm-up games have only helped with that, teams looking at me and being in touch with my agent, so he’s working hard in the background, speaking to clubs. I’m hoping to be signed up before the World Cup starts, but if that doesn’t happen, that’s OK.
“It’s always going to be in the back of my mind thinking about where I’m going to end up, club-wise. But my main focus now is the World Cup and looking forward to playing South Africa.”
After a final warm-up Test against Georgia at Murrayfield a week on Saturday, 26 August, Scotland will open their Pool B campaign against the Springboks in Marseille on September 10, before facing Tonga, Romania and Ireland in their remaining group games.
Being part of their summer training camps has at least allowed Sutherland to spend more time at home in the Scottish Borders with Tammy and his two sons, 11-year-old Mason and Hamish, seven, after a tumultuous season where the uncertainty caused by Worcester’s demise was replaced by a different type of personal torment.
“What has happened over these past eight months or so has been really hard for me,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I was over what happened at Worcester.
“I always promised myself when I became a player and had a young family that I would never let rugby break us apart as a family. But it did for a little while – we were a broken family.
“I was living over in Ireland while Tammy and the kids stayed in Worcester for a while. Then they moved back to Scotland in November last year, so I was travelling back and forth from Belfast to Edinburgh. It was tough, a real emotional ride for me, Tammy and the kids.
“I was getting on a plane in Belfast, I’d get home and have that massive feeling of happiness seeing them again. But you know it is only going to last 24 or 48 hours. Then they are driving me back up to the airport and it is sadness again that I am leaving, not knowing when I am going to be back or when they are coming to visit me.”
Happily the Sutherland clan have been reunited in recent months, as they prepare to welcome a new family member.
“He should be here anytime now,” added Sutherland, who is scheduled to fly to Scotland’s World Cup base in Nice on 3 September with the rest of the squad.
“We’re hoping the baby arrives in the next few days. It’s another boy so hopefully I’ll get to see him before I leave and spend a bit of time with him over the next couple of weeks. It will be hard for Tammy when I’m away but she’ll be OK – she’ll cope.”
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Who got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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