'It was tainted a little bit': Fergus Burke reflects on debut

Fergus Burke showed some quick thinking on and off the pitch as he earned his first Scotland cap.

The Saracens fly-half was one of the positives for Gregor Townsend’s side as he played in his first recognised international on Saturday.

A 29-14 defeat by Fiji in Suva tarnished the overall experience, but New Zealand-born Burke was delighted to line up for his adopted country after first making Townsend’s squad during the Guinness Six Nations.

“It was special,” the former All Blacks Under-20 international said. “It was kind of what I’ve dreamed of since I was younger. Fiji are a tough side, it’s a tough place to play. It was hot, they were big men, everything like that.

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“But hearing Flower of Scotland and then getting presented my cap by Rory Darge after the game and all of that was super special.

“I even had to sing a song in the after-match function, which was entertaining.

“I wasn’t expecting it at all, I didn’t get given a heads-up whatsoever. I went for a Fijian song so the Fijian community could all join in and help me out.

“So I think I did about the first line of the song and then let them take over.”

Burke impressed both at fly-half and full-back, but he is looking to have a more positive impact on Scotland’s final summer tour encounter against Samoa in Auckland on Friday.

“It was obviously a super proud day for me and my family to get my first international cap for Scotland,” the former Crusaders and Canterbury player said.

“But obviously we didn’t get the result we were after so it was tainted a little bit.

“So it was a weird one, I didn’t know how to feel really… immensely proud but also got a little bit of a burning desire to get the right result this week.

“With the defeat against Fiji, this one is even more important.

“Obviously I spent a bit more time on defence than I would have liked and probably ended up making a few more tackles than I would have liked.

“I probably would have liked to spend a bit more time on attack, but I guess that’s something we can look forward to this week.

“I think we can expect a similar challenge to Fiji and I think for parts of that Fiji game we showed how good we are as a team when we get it right.

“But when we get our discipline wrong we end up making a lot more tackles than we need to and we’re tiring ourselves out against big sides like Fiji and Samoa.

“So we need to get the discipline side of our game right and that way we can be a bit better.”