Tuipulotu embraces tough road to Scotland captaincy 

SPOTLIGHT: Newly appointed Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu credited his rise to skipper Scotland to putting his ‘heart and soul’ into the game after joining Glasgow Warriors three years ago.

The 27-year-old Australian who qualified to represent Scotland through his Greenock-born grandmother, was appointed by head coach Gregor Townsend ahead of the November internationals.

The centre will lead his adopted country for the first time at home against Fiji on Saturday on the occasion of his 28th cap – three years on from making his debut against Tonga shortly after arriving in Glasgow from Japanese side Blue Revs.

His appointment re-opened the elephant in the room on how much nationality should be a factor in the Test arena, but Tuipulotu stressed in a pre-match press conference on Friday how his Scotland future had been anything but assured.

“I look back at when I first came over and I did two weeks quarantine because it was in the Covid times and then when I popped out, one of the boys got Covid, so I ended up doing four weeks in a hotel before I did any training,” he said.

“I remember those were some pretty dark days. I was thinking about going home, to be honest, because it was getting a bit tough.”

Tuipulotu, who thanked his Glasgow and Scotland coaches for ‘believing in me,’ added: “But I’m so glad I made the move to come over.

“The progress I’ve made probably doesn’t surprise me because I put my heart and soul into my journey here and I’ve worked really hard to get to this point, not only with Scotland, but also with Glasgow.”

Tuipulotu’s mother, Angelina, will be at Murrayfield for his first game as captain, while his grandmother will he supporting him by watching on television in Australia.

“My grandma’s finally figured out how to use social media and she started replying to some of the fans online,” laughed Tuipulotu.

“I think some of the fans were saying ‘thank you to Granny from Greenock’ and she’s replying, ‘no worries’, stuff like that, which is hilarious.

“She doesn’t even have a Facebook profile picture, just blank face and Jacqueline Thomson, but she’s stoked and she’ll be up early in the morning watching our games.”