'I was living out of boxes, sitting on a mattress when Scotland call came'

Scott Steele never played in front of a crowd in his short, four-Test career for Scotland but he did feature in a Calcutta Cup match that everyone north of the border remembers.

Called up out of the blue, and into the blue, a few months earlier as the last throes of the Covid-interrupted 2020 Six Nations were played out at an eerily quiet Parc y Scarlets, Steele found himself on the bench for the opening match of the 2021 Championship.

Steele came on in the last 10-15 minutes to win his second cap, having made his debut against Wales in Llanelli, as Scotland achieved their first win over England at Twickenham since 1983, 10 years before the scrum-half was even born.

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The Great Game – Trailer | RPTV

Dive deeper into the oldest rivalry in international rugby, the Calcutta Cup between England and Scotland. Watch on RugbyPass TV now

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The fact that he played for Scotland in a match of such magnitude, alongside the mercurial Finn Russell, was unbelievable enough as he’d not really been in with a sniff of the number nine or number 21 jersey for a good few years, but more so because his career and life were in limbo.

“It was mad. I was out of contract with (London) Irish in March, just before the lockdown. I was waiting around for a couple of months wondering where my next contract would come from and when rugby was going to start again and I got an academy contract and took a huge pay cut to go to Harlequins.

“I thought, ‘I’ve got to take it’ because there was nothing else out there. So I went. We played a lot of games after restarting – Saturday-Wednesday-Sunday – and I ended up playing seven of the nine games for Quins. It was after that I got called into the Scotland squad for the first time. I thought that had passed me by. But I did lose a lot of weight during lockdown and improved as a player. It (being out of contract) gave me the kick up the arse that I probably needed.”

Steele remembers very well where he was when he took the call from Gregor Townsend to say he was needed for national service.

“I was sitting on a mattress on the floor of Alex Lewington’s flat in Twickenham, as I didn’t have a place of my own, waiting for the rest of my stuff to come out of storage when Gregor Townsend rang me out of the blue to say I was in the Scotland squad.

“Alex is a good friend of mine from our London Irish days and he’d let me use his flat when I signed for Harlequins at the last minute after being released by London Irish. Needless to say, it came as a very pleasant surprise to hear from Gregor, especially as I had thought any chance of playing for my country had gone as I was 27 at the time.

“He had been in touch with me a few times before but on those occasions, the phone call to tell me I was being considered was always followed by another call to say I hadn’t got in.

“It was that funny bit where we had to finish the last game, against Wales (at the end of October).”

Steele, a former Scotland U20s international, replaced Ali Price to help Scotland close out the match and win 11-6.

“I was pretty nervous before I came on because Ali (Price) had a couple of kicks charged down by Maro Itoje early on in the game and I was sitting there thinking, ‘He’s going to be all over me when I come on’.

“I think I got the call with about 15 minutes to go and it was almost a feeling of, ‘Are you sure, Gregor, are you sure?’ But once I got on, it just kicks in and you get on with it and all your training takes over.

“It was a pretty horrible day, the rain was lashing down and there wasn’t much rugby being played. But at the time I wasn’t particularly a running nine anyway so it probably suited me to slow the game down a bit and kick it and control the game more that way.”

Having been to Calcutta Cup games before as a fan, Steele admits that playing in rugby’s most historic fixture was an experience like no other

“Playing in the Calcutta Cup win at Twickenham in 2021 is without a doubt the highlight of my career.

“I’d been to the crazy 38-all game a couple of years before as a fan and had been on the beers all day. I remember looking down at the pitch and seeing some of the lads playing for Scotland, whom I’d played age-group stuff with, thinking wistfully to myself that it could have been me if I’d maybe worked harder.

“So, when I actually got to play there two years later I allowed myself a moment afterwards to look up to the empty grandstand where I had been sat with my mates in 2019, to let it all sink in.

“It was all I’d ever dreamed of as a kid, running around with a ball in hand dropping goals and pretending to beat England. I think if it wasn’t for that period when I played for Scotland, and won the Premiership with Harlequins, I would have found it a lot harder to process having to retire because of injury.”

Steele had only been with his team-mates a matter of months but given the circumstances around lockdown, those months felt like years.

“The only Calcutta Cup I was involved in was the first win in 38 years. No fans were there because of Covid but beggars can’t be choosers.

“I don’t know because I didn’t play international rugby when fans were there but I’d imagine you get pulled off in different directions catching up with friends and family and everyone watching the game.

“But after we celebrated on the pitch we all went straight back into the changing room, together, players and staff. We were so tight-knit because we had spent so much time together in bubbles.

“So to achieve something like that and celebrate that together was class.”

Steele went to Scotland’s all-too-familiar 32-18 home defeat to Ireland in round two and, by his own admission, it was a tough watch.

“Whilst they were unlucky with injuries, with Finn (Russell) and Darcy (Graham) having to go off, even in the first moments of the game before that, they seemed to be a level above us with the way they moved the ball, how quickly they played, how easy it was for them to get over the gain line, with metres here or there. In comparison, we just looked a bit stuck.

“Obviously, we had to make a lot of changes, guys playing out of position and having not necessarily trained there. But it wasn’t pretty to watch in terms of the last 20 minutes. I was like, ‘It feels like there’s a long time to go and it doesn’t feel as though we have got many answers’.

“That might not necessarily be a bad thing in terms of going into camp and refocusing and having a bit of a wake-up call with England winning as well, they know how much of a challenge it’ll be.

“But if Scotland can get ball at set piece and move them around, take it away from an arm wrestle, there’s no reason we can’t win.”

Now retired from pro rugby after spells at Edinburgh and Leicester as well as Irish and Quins, Steele will again be watching the Calcutta Cup with a beer in hand, in the Watsonians clubhouse, after playing for Glasgow Hawks against his former club. A third hip operation has worked well enough for him to take to the field again.

Off the field, he lasted two months in an office job before starting a new job in November, with a company called Effectivenow, going into schools and helping school leavers with their employability skills. Befitting for someone with his name, Steele never lacked resilience in his playing days and he is now passing on the traits needed to deal with adversity to those in their late teens. One of his best moments in life came during lockdown but for many of the younger generation, it has held them back in terms of their interpersonal skills.

“I’m enjoying being out and out about and in front of people. I’m working with them on their employability skills, and building their confidence and resilience because it seems to be a bit of a problem for kids these days due to technology and everything else. So it has been a bit of an eye-opener for me but it’s been good.”