When he boards the flight for Australia with the rest of the Scotland squad on Monday, Kevin McKenzie will feel that, just by being part of the tour party, he will have fulfilled the most anguished promise he made a little more than a year ago.

At the time he made it, he was still recovering from an operation that had left McKenzie paralysed in a hospital bed, wondering if he would ever walk properly again, let alone play rugby.

Meanwhile his baby son, Ross, was losing his fight with a combination of Downs Syndrome and a congenital heart defect. It was against that background that the Stirling County hooker made the vow to his dying son that he would again play for Scotland.

As he made his way back, there was a further set-back when it became clear in his appearances for Scotland A earlier this year, that he had not regained full mobility.

Even at that stage there were many who believed that, while he had recovered his formidable strength, he would never again be able to move around the pitch quickly enough to make the most of his foraging ability.

Yet, simply earning selection for the tour means McKenzie is now back operating at senior Scotland level. His is perhaps a salutary tale for those at which tour captain Rob Wainwright was having a dig on Wednesday when suggesting that there were some who had lost their appetite for Test rugby.

''I can't understand people who don't want to go on tour,'' McKenzie said, echoing the captain's sentiments.

''All right, maybe if I'd gone on the Lions tour and played right through, then I'd maybe be looking at the situation, especially the year before the World Cup. However, when you have it taken away from you with a bad injury, it can either kill you or it gives you even more of a spark.

''I'd give anything to scrape onto the tour and, although I've been on a few tours before, I was still sitting in the house waiting for the phone call or the letter to arrive.

''It was like being picked for your first Scotland cap and although Fiona's six-months pregnant, she was desperate for me to go too.''

Just as McKenzie is so acutely conscious that his wife might be enduring mixed emotions as, carrying their second child, she waves him off, so no-one knows better than she does, what he has been through and how much this means to him.

''It does sound a bit corny, but he always said he would do it for Ross, and now, even if he never wins another cap, I think he has got there,'' said Fiona.

''This has been a good year so far,'' she went on. ''You know, when you've been through something like we have, you never think you are going to smile again. People say time is a great healer, but it isn't really. You just learn to cope better.''

That she can not just smile but laugh at her own observation that she is truly grateful to the selectors for sparing her five weeks of washing dirty training gear, indicates that McKenzie has a soulmate whose character is a match for his own.

''The worst thing about what we went through was feeling sorry for him,'' she observed. ''However, it was so hard not to. It was like watching someone with some kind of palsy. His gait was just unbelievable and I hated to see him like that.''

Doctors warned McKenzie he would never reach the level of conditioning he enjoyed as Scotland's regular hooker in the 1995-96 season, and in one sense that is true.

Scar tissue around the spinal area following that surgery to repair a prolapsed disc at the top of his spine and, more significantly, the internal pressure built up in the eight months between the damage being done and its diagnosis, means that, mechanically, his legs can never function 100% as well as before.

''They said he wouldn't get back to international level, but Kevin asked if they could guarantee that he wouldn't and when they wouldn't do that, he was satisfied.

''I always knew he would be back, but then I would say that,'' said Fiona.

All of that said, it would be extremely foolish of either of McKenzie's tour rivals, Gordon Bulloch and Steve Brotherstone, to think that he might now rest on his laurels.

''I'm not going out there to sit on the bench,'' he said, setting his sights specifically on Test incumbent Bulloch. ''As soon as we get there it's every man for himself.

''He'll have to make up his mind that he wants to play as much as me. The best man will win. I know I'll probably start off third in the selectors eyes, but in my eyes there's only one.

''As each week goes on I'm getting fitter and better on the running side and at the start of the season I'll be even fitter.

''The tour will help me with training every day as well. I certainly don't think I look out of place when I'm training with the rest of the party.

''There are a lot of squad sessions and a lot of games.

''I'm confident in my ability and I know I want it. I've got an edge in that department.''