THE HERALD REPORTS
KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer March 12 2009
In a week in which the Scottish rugby community is widely expected to end up paying homage to our Irish cousins, thewords of one of the EmeraldIsle's most famous sons came to mind. "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about," Oscar Wilde once observed.

It should be a useful message for those seeking to take centre stage. Yet it seems to have passed at least some of them by, despite all the personality-sapping media training to which modern Scottish players are subjected.

Rugby in Scotland remains a minority sport that must battle for every column-inch of coverage, yet last week's visit to the Edinburgh camp suggested that homegrown players remain camera-shy.

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The comments of Andy Robinson, the head coach, were understandable: he suggested that Scott MacLeod was bound to need time to get over the attention he received last year when he twice had to prove his innocence of doping offences. Even so, top players need to be thick-skinned. If memory serves me correctly, Lawrence Dallaglio hardly missed a beat after his indiscreet claims about involvement with narcotics cost him the England captaincy a decade or so ago.

More to the point, though, was Nick De Luca's account, a few minutes after Robinson, as to how much more relaxed he is than when he first joined Scotland's squad a year ago.

"The press made quite a big deal of it back then whereas the spotlight is completely off me now because, when I got back into the squad against France, people didn't think I had and were asking me are you sure you're in?' " he said.

Personally, I’m a hell of a lot more relaxed . . . I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that word, actually
On further examination, De Luca claimed not to have paid much attention to the original coverage, adding that it is part of the job and that he aspires to a return to that spotlight. The sub-text, though, suggested that he had struggled to cope with the expectation and is now more comfortable easing his way back into Test rugby from the substitutes' bench.

He then pointed towards what might be seen as a significant difference between him - he was raised in the Scottish system - and the Zimbabwe-born, England-raised player who has taken over from him as the midfield game-breaker.

"There isn't that pressure . . .

it's on Max Evans now," De Luca continued. "He's doing a fine job of living up to it and I can just concentrate on the one or two jobs I will have when I get on the pitch."

Not that the Edinburgh centre seemed to have anything less than a decent conceit of himself when we were rhapsodising about, among other things, his memorable try against Toulouse last season.

Evans rather trumped that performance when he took the man-of-the-match award as Glasgow Warriors shocked Toulouse on their home turf this year, of course. More to the point, he is exactly the same age as De Luca but has a rather different background.

While the Edinburgh centre has been in pro rugby most of his adult life, his Warriors counterpart is almost a throwback to amateur times having had a short career as a pro golfer while out in the big wide world before his rugby talent was rediscovered.

He, and his younger brother Thom, have both seemed utterly at ease in Test rugby, resulting in yesterday's confirmation that they have become the domestic game's top-earning players as their new deals with the Scottish Rugby Union were finally announced officially.

Pleasantly self-assured, they readily embrace what attention comes their way in a manner rather different to the stilted approach of many of those relentlessly subjected to SRU programming.

Another telling moment with DeLuca . . . "Personally I'm a hell of a lot more relaxed," he said, before adding hastily, and only half-jokingly: "I don't know if I'm allowed to say that word, actually."

It's little wonder coaches worry abouttheir players' capacity to react instinctively if the mind police have that sort of hold on them.

This article was posted on 12-Mar-2009, 08:04 by Hugh Barrow.