HOW many schoolboys dragged themselves out of bed in the early hours of the morning four years ago to watch the World Cup? Probably not many – though it might have added a bit of extra motivation if their elder brother was playing. Family loyalties have to count for something.

For Jonny Gray, though, it was not just the involvement of his celebrated sibling, whom he always refers to as the perfect role model. People around him were already starting to suggest that one day they might join forces. At 17, he could absorb some of the atmosphere and hear all about the games when he got a chance to chat to Richie later, the idea of a partnership sounded a bit far fetched.

How wrong he was. These days they are very much an established pairing in the boiler room of the Scottish pack, and Jonny partly puts it down to those early mornings. "It was one of my proudest feelings to watch him go there," Jonny recalled at the Scotland team hotel in Tewkesbury where they are preparing to face Japan in their opening game of this year's World Cup on Wednesday. "The whole family were up early in the morning to see him play.

"I was still at school in fifth year sitting my higher grades. It was amazing back then. People would say I would be out there with Richie one day and I just laughed it off. I never thought it would be true so it’s a surreal feeling.

“Richie told me just how big the tournament is and what an amazing feeling it is. He told me stories from his experience of being at a World Cup and how good the tour is itself. When you are a kid you watch all of the games and you down to the rugby club to watch games so to be finally here is an amazing feeling."

The team had just got back from their first training session since shifting their base to England, where it will be for at least the next three weeks – longer if they get to the quarter-finals or beyond. To make it a little different from the run-outs they have been getting, they roped in assistance from the Gloucester club to give them some opposition.

"It was a great thing to do, they are a top-class team and getting the chance to get some set-pieces, line outs and scrums was a good thing for us," Gray said. “It was great to try out some things. Everyone is really excited to be here, the facilities are great, we are all getting focused now."

Jonny Gray was not the only one for whom the last World Cup worked its magic. Splitting his time between the family farms at Biggar and Arran was Fraser Brown, a former Scotland Under 20 captain who had been forced out of the game by a recurring neck problem. The idea that he might one day play for Scotland looked ridiculous.

Then the World Cup came around. “I was bored, and that World Cup was hyped up. Watching the last World Cup probably shaped where I am now," he said. "I had injuries and wasn’t playing."

The excitement was enough to get him back into action. At first he avoided his old position in the middle of the front row and tried out for Heriot's as a flanker – it turned out to be a smart move since his ability to play more than one position has had a big role in helping to win a spot in this squad.

“I had been injured for a couple of years and had taken a bit of time out. As a young guy it can be quite depressing not getting to do the things you want to do. You get a bit impatient as a 20-year-old kid," he recalls.

“The seven or eight months I was away were long enough so I decided to go down and chuck the ball about again with some good guys. It went on from there: I always had the goal that I wanted to play at the top level, whether that was with Scotland or at professional level, but at that stage in my life I just wanted to play the game that I enjoyed as a six-year-old kid.

“Working at the farm can be a pretty lonely existence so that camaraderie you get through the week and on a Saturday with rugby is what I missed."

It worked. A couple of seasons getting his appetite back and proving to himself that the neck issue was behind him and he got snapped up by Glasgow Warriors. On the day he should have been starting pre-season training, he found himself on the plane to join the national squad in South Africa after a run of injuries had created a hooker crisis.

Although Brown sees it now as something of a false start to his Test career, the eight minutes he played in the final match against Italy was a start. Two years later, he is firmly established and grateful for the early-morning World Cup thrills that pushed him back into the game.