Dave Cherry has been back in familiar territory these last few days since the Scotland squad landed at Nice Airport on Friday night to begin their World Cup campaign, and he’s enjoyed bumping into some old pals from his time playing for the local rugby team – Stade Nicois – during the 2017-18 season.

That was a tough and at times brutal experience in French rugby’s notoriously tough lower leagues. but the Edinburgh private school educated hooker believes it was the making of him.

"It was Federale Two so I don’t know how that equates [to the league structure in England where he had previously played with London Scottish], all I know is that there were no touch judges,” recalls the now 32-year-old, referencing the fact that there was a lot of off-the-ball action which was rarely picked up by the lonely referee charged with keeping some sort of control of the contest.

"I have videos of it. ‘The good old days,’ as you would probably say. There would usually be a right barney and it would start with the scrum. That was how it went, week in, week out.

"Nobody particularly liked our club. They were just jealous of us, I guess. So every week was the same, and that’s just the way it was.”

At that time, Stade Nicois had a partnership with Scottish Rugby, which involved players being sent to the south of France to get game exposure, but the training regime at that level was not as professionalised as was available at Edinburgh and Glasgow, so the reality was that they had to make the most of it themselves.

"There was a group of us here – Tyrone Holmes, Peter Murchie, Bruce Flockhart and Josh Henderson – and we took it on ourselves to do extra gym and graft and get that contract back home, so that spurred me on to keep at it and never give up," Cherry explains.

"It was not the usual path that a rugby player in my position would take but I would not have changed it. It has shaped me as to how I am and the story of how I got here. 

"I remember going to the first game in some village and in the dressing room beforehand I was told: ‘If it kicks off, we are all in’. 

"I was thinking: 'Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard this before,’ – but it really did kick-off. I flew in and found myself at the bottom of a ruck and that was that, it all kicked off from there. There were handbags flying everywhere.

"It was sink or swim. Luckily, I swam and the French adopted me and liked the fact I got stuck in with them and the rest is history, I guess. 

"It wasn’t ideal but how we had to play in that league. The goal was to get promoted and that’s what we did. Thankfully I got a contract at Edinburgh off the back of that."

Cherry takes a moment to recognise the small role played by current Scotland forwards coach John Dalziel in giving him a nudge in the right direction during that seminal spell in his career.

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"JD was down at London Scottish while I was there and I was in two minds about whether to go to Nice, and he convinced me I should," he explains. "He said it was a sideways step to go forward so I trusted him and then I remember I came to train with Edinburgh around Christmas time and Richard Cockerill [the then Edinburgh coach] said he wanted me to stay, but I had to go back and finish my time out here.

"Then, when that Edinburgh contract finally came, it put my mind at ease that I had done enough to get back home.”

Having been rejected by his hometown club at the start of his career, meaning he had to prove himself in the lower leagues of England and France during what should have been the peak years, Cherry’s determination to make the absolute most of whatever time he has left at the top means he will stay in France for the duration of this World Cup campaign, despite the fact his fiancé, Olivia, is due to give birth the day after Scotland’s pool match against Tonga.

"I am committed to playing the games for Scotland and you never know when she will appear, but Olivia is at ease with that," he firmly states.

"I am pretty driven, and, if I’m honest, this will be my last World Cup, I am going to throw everything at it. I have thrown the kitchen sink at it already and it doesn’t stop now, it is just starting.”

Cherry is in a three-way shoot-out against George Turner (who was first choice hooker during the Six Nations) and up-and-coming Ewan Ashman (who will become a clubmate at Edinburgh when they return from France) for the Scotland No 2 jersey.

While he lacks Turner’s explosive power and Ashman’s dynamism, he is arguably the strongest of the trio technically in that specialist position and the most effective at the breakdown.