Dave Cherry isn’t the sort to get wide-eyed, given the struggles he’s had to reach the international game and make his Scotland debut this season.
But the 30-year-old admits he’s still awestruck by his debut at Twickenham, a day “that just didn’t last long enough”.
Cherry battled to get noticed for years in the English Championship with London Scottish, spent a couple of years at Scottish Rugby’s outpost at Stade Nicois, before he joined Edinburgh. His play there and the injuries to Fraser Brown and Stuart McInally brought him the call-up to Scotland this Six Nations.
But even in his wildest dreams he hadn’t expected to be part of the first Scotland win at Twickenham for 38 years.
Twickenham over ‘way too quickly’
“It was so surreal,” he recalled. “The whole day was over way too quickly for my liking!
“I remember sitting in the stand and looking at the clock and I was like, ‘how’s that 60 minutes gone already?’ And then it came to the end of the game, and I was in it, and then the final whistle was there before you knew it.
“And then when Hoggy asked me and Cam (Redpath) to lift the cup – I think I’ve thanked him about 30 times.
“It was over so quickly. We zoomed my family in the changing rooms when I got my cap. I look back on it and it’s still a bit unbelievable really.
To have my first cap at Twickenham and win the Calcutta Cup – you couldn’t write that, especially with the journey I’ve been on.”
‘You never know if it is going to be your last game’
The jump from the club game to the international one has been a big one, but he’s loving it, and trying to relish every second.
“I think it is the same no matter who you are,” he said. “You never know if it is going to be your last game or not, so that’s how I’ve always treated every game. I’ll continue to do that for however long my career goes.
“It was definitely tough on the learning front – things change from week to week. But I’ve absolutely loved it and dived in head-first in at the deep end.”
‘There was a time when I thought it had passed me by’
The chance has come late in his career, but he never doubted his ability to get there.
“There was a time I thought it had passed me by. I was a lot younger and playing in the Championship,” he said.
“It’s a notoriously hard place to get out of! There are times there when you wonder if you’re ever going to kick on as time passed. I then went to France which was a bit of a sideways step to go forward.
“But I’m here now as I always believed in myself. Sometimes you need a bit of luck but that’s life. I’ve created my own luck by working hard and I’ve been given my opportunity.
“It’s all panned out for me now thanks mainly to my own resilience. I have the mantra of never giving up and I guess that’s paid dividends for me.”
A ‘hugely positive environment’
Despite the disappointment against Wales, Cherry feels Scotland are still in a good place.
“For me, it is a hugely positive environment to come into,” he said. Everyone is working hard together, for each other, there is a real squad mentality. I think that has shown in our games.
“Obviously, Wales didn’t go our way. But we were still in it at the end even though we’d had the red card.
“We’ve spoken a lot about the physicality as Ireland are a really physical team.
“So it’s all about winning the race to the breakdown which is something we did really well against England. We have to carry that into the Ireland game and hopefully dominate that.”