Former Hawk Ruaridh Jackson believes the experience he gained from helping Scotland ‘A’ to win the IRB Nations Cup in Bucharest will stand the young play-maker in good stead in terms of his overall development.
At just 21, the Glasgow Warriors stand-off was the youngest member of the victorious Scotland ‘A’ squad – with an average age of 24 – which recorded wins over Russia, Uruguay and France ‘A’ en route to winning the trophy.
As a result, the promising back revealed he learned a huge amount over the two-week period in Romania which will aid his education as a player.
Jackson said: “I felt I learned a lot of different things from working with the different coaches. Both Andy (Robinson) and Gregor (Townsend) were great at analysing games and going through little aspects that needed to be worked on.
“I picked up a lot of little pointers which helped to shape my game, so it was a really good learning experience and I found it beneficial.”
After experiencing a handful of missed kicks at goal against Russia, Jackson responded with an outstanding kicking display against France ‘A’; contributing 17 points with five penalties and a conversion.
The former Scotland under-20 internationalist revealed his upturn in fortunes with the kicking tee could be attributed to all the work he had put in on the training ground.
He added: “I was just really happy to show that I can kick well. Obviously a few questions were raised after the Russia game.
“But, even though I knew I didn’t kick that well in the Russia game, I felt I was still striking it pretty well.
“It was all about making little tweaks to my kicking which I did during the training sessions to make sure it went well against France ‘A’.
Forming a formidable half-back combination with the IRB Nations Cup Player of the Tournament, Chris Cusiter, Jackson revealed he enjoyed playing alongside his fellow Aberdonian and cannot wait to resume that partnership next season with Glasgow Warriors.
He said: “I’m really looking forward to working with Chris at Glasgow during the forthcoming season.
“He proved once again on the tour that he is a world-class player; he was absolutely tremendous in both games he played.
“He was just really good to work beside because he was always talking and trying to help me out.”

This article was posted on 25-Jun-2009, 11:07 by Hugh Barrow.