WHEN Phil Burleigh decided to move from the city of Dunedin – the Gallic name for Edinbugh – to sample the real thing, playing international rugby had nothing to do with his thinking. Now that the chance may come, however, he is ready to grasp it with both hands.

It is not that he does not have Scottish links. He does, but he is one generation too late to qualify for Scotland automatically, his great grandparents having moved before his grandmother was born in New Zealand.

Despite that he was brought up on tales of the old country and that played a part in his decision to move to Edinburgh when he was looking for a fresh challenge after serving his time with the Highlanders, the Dunedin-based franchise that won Super Rugby in 2015.

“My great grandparents were born in Aberdeen, so I do have Scottish blood in me,” he said. “I guess I’ve immersed myself in the culture. I’m here now and really enjoying it and feel a part of it. I’m extremely proud to have made that initial [Scotland training] squad but now I’ve got to do a lot more. My concentration at the moment is with Edinburgh.”

He admitted that as time went on, it became obvious that he was well settled in Scotland and as he was seeing others such as WP Nel and Cornell Du Preez going through to qualify for Scotland on residency, he started to think about doing the same thing himself. It was never a priority, though, and a huge surprise when he got a phone call from Gregor Townsend, the Scotland head coach, just before the season started asking him to train with the national team.

“I knew it was coming around although I’d forgotten that the three years would come that quickly. Gregor got in touch with me and told me so I was delighted,” Burleigh recalled. “It meant a lot. I learned a lot about the way they want to play. It was really good.”

As a centre, these days one of the most competitive positions in the squad – he effectively took the place previously occupied by experienced cap Matt Scott – he understands it is a huge leap from training with the squad to actually winning a cap, but at least he has put a foot on the first rung of the ladder.

The key is how he does at Edinburgh. With all its struggles over the past few years, the capital club has not been pulling its weight in terms of providing players to the national side. The only way of correcting that is to start getting wins and creating a platform for players like Burleigh to shine.

After the doom and despair of their non-performance against Benetton Treviso a week and a half ago, there were a few encouraging signs in the battling defeat away to the Scarlets last weekend, especially when you take into consideration they played most of the second half with 14 men.

“We were happy that we went [to Llanelli] with a more physical attitude,” said Burleigh. “There had been a bit of a drop-off the previous week – I think Cockers [Richard Cockerill, the head coach] mentioned that. Our physicality was really good against Scarlets and we will need to bring that against Leinster.

“They are going to be just as hard, but I think we learnt a bit from that game.”