By Gary Heatly
This time two years ago, Freddy Douglas was in his final year at Stewart’s Melville College, now he is part of the full Scotland rugby squad, aged just 19.
It has been quite the 15 months or so for the back-rower since he joined Edinburgh Rugby’s Senior Academy straight from school.
Since then, he has played for the Future XV in the part-time professional Super Series competition, trained at Edinburgh with some of the best pro players in the country, helped Scotland under-20s win the World Rugby Trophy and, most recently, played for Edinburgh A.
All that time, Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend has been keeping tabs on this exciting talent, and in late October he called the uncapped number seven up to his 45-strong squad for the Autumn Nations Series, which begins on Saturday 2 November against Fiji at Scottish Gas Murrayfield.
Freddy is not involved this weekend in the matchday 23, but with further games to come against South Africa on 10 November, Portugal on 16 November and Australia on 24 November, plus an A game versus the full Chile national team on 23 November at Hive Stadium, then it is no surprise that the whole school community is buzzing for him right now and what is ahead.
And Freddy himself was buzzing when the head coach told him he was part of his plans for this busy month: “I can barely remember the conversation, it was all a bit of a whirlwind,” Freddy said.
“I was just looking straight into his eyes and trying to take it in thinking ‘what are you saying?’. Then I shook his hand, shook some of the other coaches’ hands and was still in disbelief.
“Then I saw [fellow Edinburgh youngster] Isaac Coates and when I told him what it was about, and that I was in the squad for the Autumn, he started jumping around and was so happy for me and it kind of hit me what a big thing it was.
“I wasn’t expecting anything like this, I was just trying to take everything in. I had a wee phone call with my mum when I was standing outside the Oriam [Scotland’s training facility on the outskirts of Edinburgh] soon after, and that was quite emotional because she wasn’t expecting that news either.
“My dad is from Northern Ireland and he played rugby all the way through school and onto Scottish Universities and club level, while my older brother played all the way through school and onto Uni, so rugby has always been in our family.
“I loved playing rugby at Stewart’s Melville College and learnt a lot from the coaches and my team mates there and now, looking forward, I just want to keep my head down and work as hard as I can over the next few weeks.”
Freddy played rugby all the way up through the different age groups at school and, in the latter part of his school career, worked closely with head of rugby Mr Edwards.
"I am absolutely over the moon for Freddy, he has worked so hard and everyone at the School is so delighted, it is so cool to see him getting this opportunity so early in his career,” the teacher said.
“He is an exciting talent and is someone that has got huge potential to kick on in the professional game. He may not have played a competitive game for Edinburgh yet, but he is widely regarded as somebody who can have a big, big future within Scottish rugby and I am keen to see how he does.
“As a youngster growing up, he was always really good on the ground, his jackal work was his big selling point, but he built from there to develop his all-round game and the finer details that can help take anyone up the levels.
“His ‘catch-pass’ and his ball carrying consistently improved at school and will be continuing to improve in the environments he is in now, and I think he is a potential star for the future.
“He is just a really calm, quiet individual who gets on with his work and he seems to get better when games and situations get harder, so the fact that he has already excelled with the Under-20s and Edinburgh A does not surprise me, and he’ll be relishing getting the chance to be in the Scotland environment.
“I really hope that he goes on to earn a cap over the November period, and we will be watching at the School with a lot of excitement and pride.”
As mentioned, Gregor Townsend is clearly a big fan of Freddy and said upon naming the wider squad: “I remember watching an under-16 game at Stewart’s Melville College a few years back and he was outstanding and there was a lot of talk that Freddy Douglas is going to be special.
“Given his work with the Scotland under-20s recently, there is now an expectation that when there's a ruck close to him, the ball is going to be coming back on his side.
“Mindset is very important, and Freddy just doesn’t take a backwards step. I think every game he's played, whichever level it is at, he's done something that's impressed us as a coaching group.
“Whether it was recently playing for Edinburgh A against Glasgow when I think he got four or five turnovers, or when he got the most turnovers in the under-20 Six Nations earlier in the year, he just consistently performs.
“We've trained against him with Scotland against the under-20s and he fronted up against our players. We've coached him in the last few weeks with the National Academy and we love what he brings.”
