AS the ball fell to him with an open route to the line Jamie Bhatti looked poised to score one of the greatest first tries in international rugby history, writes Kevin Ferrie.
In reality the replacement prop knew it was not to be, however as he played down his part in a moment’s drama that has seen All Black captain Kieran Read targeted for criticism.
“The ball came squirting out from Jonny Gray’s hands and I picked it up. As I picked it up the whistle went so I didn’t celebrate,” he admitted, albeit he added: “I am not a ref but I would say it should be play on. I never saw the slap at the time but you do as you do. I reacted to it, picked the ball up and the sticks were there so that was it. It would have been my first try. I have not scored for Glasgow yet. So imagine that, first score for Scotland.”
All of which speaks to his extraordinary rise through the ranks.
“I was saying in the changing room before my first cap that April this year I was in the same changing rooms playing for Melrose against Ayr. Six months later I am in there winning my first cap for Scotland,” said the man who made his Test debut against Samoa.
Something of a late developer the opportunity might never have come his way had he not flunked his bid to become a very different type of boy in blue.
“There was a time when I thought the pro thing had passed me by. I was looking at other careers. I applied for the police but I messed up the interview for that,” he revealed.“I passed the fitness test, I passed the written test and then came to the formal interview and I made a mess of it.
“It was maybe a godsend I didn’t get it.
“I said if I got in the police I would have stepped away from rugby. I just froze. It was all a bit formal and I had the suit and tie on.”
No such finery was required in the slaughterhouse job he was holding down at the time, but that only provided additional motivation to grab his opportunity when it arrived, via an approach from Melrose.
“I didn’t want to be there for the rest of my days. Anything would have done. Being there makes you want it more, work that bit harder so you don’t have to go back to the manual labour, getting up at half five, driving into your work.”
All of which makes fronting up to the world’s best rugby side and putting in the work required to have the opportunity to do so seem rather less daunting than some others have painted it as being.
As to putting a Wallaby kill on his CV, Bhatti – who could make a first Scotland start if Darryl Marfo does not recover from injury – will simply deal with whatever confronts him.
“Obviously it will be a tough test against Australia and they had a bad loss against England but they are a world class side so we have to be at our best to beat them,” he said.
“(But) we were playing good rugby on Saturday. It was another game of rugby and we know we can play like that. The boys just stepped up to the challenge.”
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