Kevin Bryce surprised at Rugby World Cup call-up for Scotland

Glasgow hooker Kevin Bryce was surprised to receive a Rugby World Cup call-up after he replaced the injured Stuart McInally in the Scotland squad.

Bryce was not named in Vern Cotter's initial 46-man training squad, so was taken aback by developments on Monday afternoon, when McInally failed to recover from a neck injury.

Bryce won his first call-up in Scotland's 2014 summer tour, but did not feature off the bench after being called up as cover ahead of their warm-up win over Italy in Turin last month.

And the 27-year-old did not suspect anything despite being told on Sunday to report to Murrayfield on Monday morning.

Bryce said: "It was quite a shock and it's not quite sunk in yet. I have been on the fringes and went away to Italy but I never thought I was going to get the phone call.

"I always thought it was an outside bet. I never thought I would be going away to a World Cup."

And Bryce conceded he was stunned when Cotter delivered the news.

"His exact words were: 'You're in, congratulations'. I wasn't quite ready for it," he said.

"I got a phone call on Sunday to come in today. I had a couple of niggles from the game on Friday so I had to come in and see everything was all right.

"The Scotland doctor wanted to see I was all right but I never thought anything of it. I trained in the morning and got told at lunchtime."