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Scott Cummings outlines ambitious career targets after new deal
By Bryn Palmer
Glasgow lock Scott Cummings has set his sights on a second British & Irish Lions tour and World Cup success with Scotland after signing a new three-year deal to keep him at Scotstoun until the end of the 2028-2029 season.
The 29-year-old featured in five games for Andy Farrell’s Lions tourists last summer but admits he was “gutted” not to make the match-day 23 for any of the three Tests against Australia.
With captain Maro Itoje taking up one spot, Ireland’s Joe McCarthy, initially, and England’s Ollie Chessum were preferred as Itoje’s second-row partners before an injury to McCarthy saw Irishman James Ryan promoted to the bench for the second Test and then the starting side for the third.
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“It is a tricky one,” reflected Cummings, who has won 45 Scotland caps since 2019 and established himself as a first-choice pick, when fit, over the past two years.
“You are there with the best of the best, and you could name any team that would be full of incredible players on that tour. I don’t think there’s necessarily a wrong decision about things. It’s about preferences and what he saw in certain players and what he wanted from certain players. We won the series so you can’t actually argue with who he’s picked in the end. But I don’t want that to dampen what was still an amazing experience. There wasn’t a fairytale ending to it for me, but I still had an amazing time.
“I want to go on another Lions tour if I can, in four years’ time. I was obviously gutted not to get a Test jersey in the summer, so that is still an ambition of mine. I believe a lot of us Scottish guys took a lot of belief out of that tour, learning about guys from other teams, knowing they are the same as us. There’s nothing crazy going on there that we’re not doing. It’s just sometimes they execute better than us.”
Another ambition is achieving tangible success with Scotland, who have never finished higher than third in the Six Nations under Gregor Townsend and were knocked out at the group stage of the last two World Cups, with Cummings playing in all four games at both Japan 2019 and France 2023.
“With the next World Cup coming up soon, as a squad we want to be better than we are currently,” he said. “We feel like we have the ability, but it’s time for us to act on it.”
Many of those Scotland players have already tasted success at Glasgow, with Cummings scoring one of their tries in the final of a memorable URC title triumph against the Bulls in Pretoria in 2024.
If that was one of Cummings’ career highlights to date, toppling six-time European champions Toulouse last Saturday in a stunning comeback from 21-0 down at half-time was also up there.
“Opposition-wise, that was a statement win for us, to show we are a serious team in Europe this year,” he said. “We want to compete with the big teams and we are going to go full throttle and have a good run at it. It was obviously a massive win.”
Warriors sit top of Champions Cup Pool 1 at the halfway stage and are well placed to progress in the new year to a home tie in the last 16.
The chance to claim more silverware with a talented, maturing squad was a factor in Cummings, who has played 148 senior games for Glasgow over the past decade, opting to reject interest from elsewhere and extend an 11-year association with his hometown club.
“Definitely,” he concurred. “I believe we can compete in both Europe and the URC. We have a really good group of players who have been together a while. We’re also developing some really good, exciting young players that are adding real good depth to the squad.
“I believe we can compete for more silverware. I am someone who wants to win things, so that is one of the decisions you make. We were able to prove two years ago that we can win things, and we have that belief we can go and compete for more. So that was definitely a factor in making me stay.”
One of those emerging young players is fellow lock Max Williamson, the 6ft 7in, 118kg 23-year-old who has already won nine Scotland caps and will start alongside Cummings for a third successive game on Saturday in the first of a festive URC double-header with Scottish rivals Edinburgh, at Hampden Park.
“I’d put him and (fellow Glasgow lock) Alex Samuel (who is 23 next week) in the same boat,” Cummings said. “They’re both incredible players and still young – they’ve got so much growth still, the two of them.
“Max might not have come back at the start of the season at his very best, but he’s been playing well [recently]. I think he’s going to be a massive player for Scotland, for now and the future. He is starting to hit his stride, putting in some big hits. He’s that sort of big, physical lock around the pitch, so it works as a good pairing with me – I let him do the hard work! He is an incredible player, very important to us; he does a lot of the grunt work, allowing some of your ball-carriers like Jack Dempsey to roam a bit freer.”
More immediately, Cummings will be go head to head with his Scotland second-row partner Grant Gilchrist, trying to get an edge at the lineout as Glasgow and Edinburgh do battle over two games for the annual 1872 Cup, won for the last three years by Warriors.
“It’s funny, in [Scotland] camp you have got to be a bit coy about what you say has worked for you, and what hasn’t worked,” Cummings added. “But every team changes things week in, week out. They will be analysing us and what we do. We will analyse them and have some plans for what they do.
“There’s definitely tendencies they have, and we have, which we’ve probably picked up from each other. It is up to us to use some of that against them, and they’ll probably do the same. It’s a bit like a chess match; you’ve got to design things that you think will work and I find that a fun part of the challenge.”
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