Scotland star Gordon Reid has scored at Twickenham – now he wants to win

Scots who have scored a try at Twickenham in a Calcutta Cup clash are a pretty exclusive and elite band but prop Gordon Reid freely admits that he would swap membership of that club for a rewrite of history two years ago.

Scotland's Gordon Reid has rediscovered his love for the game

The 32-year-old London Irish loosehead prop scored his one and only try in 33 caps against England back then but doesn’t take it personally that his 28th-minute drive over, with the Scots already chasing the game, has been a tad forgotten in what turned into a traumatic record 61-21 humiliation.

“It was a tough one to take. You try to take a positive in that I was quite happy that I scored, but you would take that away for the win,” said Reid, who was an unused replacement in the loss to Wales at the 
weekend.

“I think they embarrassed us a little bit when we were down there. The scoreline was just too much for us.”

Former Glasgow man Reid, who was part of the Warriors’ 2015 Pro12 title triumph, is loving being back in the national squad and dearly wants to be part of the group that heads south in search of a first Twickenham win since 1983,

“I would love to go back down the road to be honest, it would save me a flight,” joked the Ayrshireman, who left Scotstoun for London Irish in 2017.

“No, it’s obviously a big game for us and I would love to be involved. It’s one of those games that, when you’re growing up, you always want to be involved in. I’m looking forward to it.

“I played in the game a couple of years ago and scored. I have blurred memories of it. It was great to get a try but, on the other hand, the scoreline obviously wasn’t the best.

“We were really disappointed. We know it’s a tough place to go and win. You can see that with the results England have had at home, they’ve beaten a lot of big teams.

“But we want to go down there, do our stuff, and try to get that victory.”

Reid was frustrated to not get off the bench at the weekend and represent his country for the first time since he started the South Africa Test in the 
autumn.

However, he is happy to be back in the international environment after confessing to some struggles as his career reaches the twilight stage.

“I lost that fun [about playing] around Christmas time and now I’ve found it again,” he revealed.

“It was just different things with family reasons. My wife stays up in Scotland and I stay down in England. It was just different things. You lose it and, when you do find it, you get the love back for it.”

Reid also started last year’s famous 25-13 victory over the auld enemy and has noted the comments emanating from England coach Eddie Jones about their plans to inflict 80 minutes of hell on the Scots.

“It motivates us. We know how big a game it is. We’ve not won down there in a long time,” he said.

“It’s massive. They’re going to be coming out firing after what happened at Murrayfield last year. We got the one-up on them at home. So they’ll come out firing.

“We’re excited for the game and we’re obviously going to take some positives from the game against Wales last week. We also need to work on some of the negatives that we had last week. The boys are keen to get out there, move forward and put things right.”