John Hardie will become fan favourite says Scotland's assistant coach Matt Taylor
Thursday 10 September 2015 14:13, UK
John Hardie has been tipped to become one of Scotland's most popular rugby players by assistant coach Matt Taylor.
The New Zealand-born flanker was a surprise inclusion in Vern Cotter's 31-man Rugby World Cup squad at the expense of John Barclay and Blair Cowan, after which the head coach was criticised for snubbing home talent.
Hardie only touched down in Scotland for the first time six weeks ago and on August 22 made his international debut in a pre-tournament friendly against Italy.
The 27-year-old qualifies for Scotland through his grandparents and could start in their World Cup opener against Japan on September 23.
And Taylor believes he has a massive future playing for Scotland, saying: "On the field John has been excellent.
"I'm really excited for him because he's come in and just got his head down and worked hard. He's a quality person and a quality rugby player.
"I think you'll find the rest of the group have also been really happy with him and appreciate him not only as a guy but as a player as well.
"I don't know if he has felt under pressure to justify his place because I haven't asked him that. But he may have felt like that.
"He's gone out and trained really hard though and shown on the field how good he is.
"I wouldn't be surprised in six months or a year's time - once he's had a lot more games for Scotland - that he becomes a crowd favourite.
"If he keeps playing the way he is, the Scottish people will appreciate that he's working hard and putting his body on the line."
And Taylor refused to accept that Scotland will easily beat Japan in less than two weeks.
He added: "I'm concerned about the attacking threat of every team we play.
"Japan are certainly good at scoring tries from set-piece, so I think we need to have really good structures in place.
"They play a high tempo game so we need to get up and make some dominant hits to slow them down.
"All the teams in our group can score tries, so I've got my work cut out for me."
