Javan Sebastian was in the dark when he saw the light. 

After failing to make the breakthrough with Glasgow Warriors in season 2015-16, the tighthead prop decided to give up on his dream of becoming a professional rugby player and head back to his home town of Carmarthen, where he got a job in a butchery. But he had not been long in that gloomy environment when he realised he had made a mistake, and decided to give pro sport one more try.

The rest is history. From local team Carmarthen Quins, Sebastian signed for Scarlets, where his steadily improving performances brought him to the attention of Gregor Townsend. A call-up to a Scotland training squad followed, then he made his debut off the bench against Japan in late 2021, and now the 28-year-old - who recently left Scarlets to join Edinburgh - is a member of the head coach’s final squad of 33 for the Rugby World Cup.

“I didn’t actually play any pro rugby with Glasgow,” Sebastian explained last week after the squad was announced.  “I spent most of the season with Ayr, which was enjoyable - I loved it. But I always knew there was more in me. 

“My ex-partner and I had a child together so we decided to pack up and go back to Wales, where it was a bit easier family-wise, closer to home. After that I took a year out of rugby and worked in a butcher’s. That was dark. It wasn’t something I wanted to spend my life doing. 

“I was on the picking line in the butchery. I would wake up at 5am and be straight in there. There was no windows, no clocks, no nothing in there. It was an old-school butchery. 

“You didn’t see the light of day, especially in the winter. You didn’t leave til 6pm so it was dark to dark. 

“It was a sorting line. Meat is coming through and you are packaging it and sorting it to where it needs to to go – whether it’s the freezer or being sent out for delivery.  So I thought, ‘No, this isn’t for me’. That is when I decided to give rugby another shot.” 

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Sebastian always knew that he qualified to play for Scotland through his dad, Eddie, who is from Edinburgh. Nonetheless, it still came as a surprise to him a couple of years ago when Scarlets coach Dwayne Peel asked to have a word with him. “Dwayne pulled me aside and said ‘Gregor Townsend has been asking about you - he’s been impressed with how you’ve been performing’. 

“I was like, ‘Oh right’, but didn’t even think about it really. But then later I was told ‘Gregor wants you to go and train with them, see how you get on’. I didn’t think it was going to happen, it was so random.” 

But it did happen, and far from being a random, one-off event, Sebastian’s involvement with the national squad became a regular occurrence. As a newcomer and a relative outsider he was by no means guaranteed a place in the World Cup party - and last week Townsend admitted that choosing him rather than Murphy Walker was “definitely a close decision” - yet in the end his willingness to fight his corner won the day.

“Not a lot of people would be thinking I would make the 33,” Sebastian continued. “But I pushed hard in training and showed what I’m about. I think Gregor noticed something within me. As an outsider coming in, actually making the final 33 is a huge confidence boost for me. 

“I’ve been in the environment before, but it was still nerve-wracking coming in. Most of the lads are pretty nice, they welcome you just like a squad member, but it is tough. You don’t really have the same connections to boys as some others do.” 

He is still behind Zander Fagerson and WP Nel in the pecking order for the No 3 jersey, but the head coach himself has encouraged him not to settle for that. “Gregor said, ‘Don’t be just happy with being in the squad’. I said ‘That’s what I want - I want a starting shirt’. I want to be pushing boys as hard as I can – that’s my main goal for this tournament. I’ve just got to keep training hard and hopefully put my hand up for selection.”     

The next step, clearly, is to win more caps, possibly starting against Georgia on Saturday in Scotland’s fourth and final warm-up match. Then there is the World Cup itself, and beyond that a new club career with Edinburgh in the URC.

“I can’t wait for the season. It’s a new chapter for me, a new challenge I would never have expected. Apart from that stint with Glasgow, I’ve never experienced anything else apart from the Scarlets, so it’s exciting.”