England World Cup winner Jason’s Robinson is set to appear for Scotland in their forthcoming meetings with Australia, England and New Zealand at this autumn’s Rugby League Four Nations tournament.
Lewis Tierney, the 21-year-old Wigan Warriors full-back/winger, qualifies to play for Scotland under the grand-parent rule because Robinson’s mother Dorothy originally hailed from Kirkintilloch and has been called into Steve McCormack’s squad for the biggest challenge the Scotland coach and his players have ever faced as they take on the sport’s three super-powers.
Since Scotland qualified for a tournament which provides them with the ideal preparation for next year’s World Cup in Australia by winning the European Championship in 2015, McCormack has set about assembling his strongest ever squad for what represents one of the most formidable challenges in sport. The recruitment of Tierney, who understudies Sam Tomkins, England’s full-back who is one of the sport’s greatest modern-day players, consequently represents a major coup.
The Scottish Rugby Union attempted something similar 16 years ago when, having established himself in the great Wigan team of that era, Robinson made a big money switch of codes to join Sale Sharks in Millennium year and, after the media uncovered his eligibility, Ian McGeechan, the then Scotland head coach, registered interest in bringing him into his squad.
Robinson instead opted to play for England, however, making a near seamless switch to the 15-a-side game and going on to establish himself as one of their finest every players and scoring their only try on the greatest day in their history when they won the World Cup in 2003.
HeraldSport understands that Tierney, who made a try-scoring debut for Wigan as an 18-year-old and has scored six tries this season in 17 appearances for the club, was fully aware of his options and was keen to accept the opportunity offered by McCormack.
Tierney attended a pre-tournament gathering with other home-based players earlier this week. He will be part of one of the strongest units in the team, competing for a place with Matty Russell, the Irvine-born Warrington Wolves full-back, Davie Scott, the former Stirling County youth player who switched codes as a teenager and like Russell impressed during the 2013 World Cup and Euan Aitken, the brilliant young St George Illawarra Dragons player who is one of several players from the world’s top competition, Australia’s National Rugby League, who are taking advantage of their Scottish heritage.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel