He visibly balked at seeing his parents “necking” on the Murrayfield big screen, but Adam Hastings maybe came of age as Scotland stand-off in helping end France’s Grand Slam campaign at Murrayfield on Sunday.
Former Scotland and Lions captain Gavin and wife Diane shared a smooch when the TV cameras focused on them during the Six Nations match – and when the camera switched to their son on the pitch, his distaste was all too clear.
“‘Yeah, I saw them, and hopefully that will be the last of that!” he said afterwards. “I looked up and saw it and I was trying to send them a message. I don’t want them necking on national television!”
More importantly, Adam seemed to have settled into the key role at 10 at last after a fraught spell when everyone was talking about the man he replaced, Finn Russell.
Hastings’ dummy and weaving run setting up the first try for Sean Maitland, a quick delivery helping with the second, during an all-round assured display with ball in hand and with the boot as the Scots won their second game in a row against a highly-favoured French outfit.
Now he’s set to lead the team through a successful championship if Scotland can get their first win in Cardiff since 2002 against a wounded Wales next week.
The win against Italy two weeks ago saw Hastings score a try to finish off the 15-0 victory, but his frustrations came out in the celebration of that score and he wasn’t remotely happy with how his Rome experience went.
“I was disappointed with the Italy game, personally,” he said. “I felt like I was pretty inconsistent in that match, that was disappointing.
“I had time to let that stew, but I came out against France just to focus on doing my job and doing the simple things. I felt I managed to do that.
“I tend to actually enjoy the pressure. I usually play half-decent when the pressure is on, but a lot of things against Italy were just self-inflicted.
“It was really pleasing to come through that and bounce back in this game. For the team, we got that good tough win in Rome and I think you saw us in full flight against France.”
Scotland imposed their game on France – the pressure on France’s key man Antoine Dupont mean the star scrum-half had a nightmare day – but they’ve been close to that in every game of this championship, believes Hastings.
“It’s actually frustrating because, in a way, we feel like we could have had four wins from four,” he said. “We’ve had chances. It’s just been stop-start at times, almost “what if”.
“We’ve got two wins under our belt now and we need to take that momentum into the game against Wales next week.
“The difference away from home could be our defence. Steve Tandyhas been brilliant with us since he’s come in. He’s given us a new lease of life in that area.
“We almost enjoy defending now, whereas we maybe didn’t used to in the past. It’s a big strength of ours. We’re not afraid to put the ball deep and then let teams have a crack at us.
“The defence has been really well handled. It had just been a little bit stop-start for us in attack and it hadn’t quite clicked prior to France, but now it has.”
And for the Hastings family, it was a celebration of a day.
“It’s lovely to have them there, and my sister,” he said. “My mum is probably my No 1 fan and it means a lot to both of them.”
