Edinburgh Rugby star admits work to do to make World Cup

Liam McConnell accepts he has work to do if he is to force his way into the Scotland squad for next year's Rugby World Cup.  

The former Scotland U20 captain enjoyed a breakthrough year with Edinburgh last season and earned his first Scotland cap in a one-sided drubbing of USA last November.  

The 21-year-old added a second cap in the low-key win over Fiji in the Nations Championship this summer but missed out on facing Argentina and South Africa.

Both of McConnell's caps so far have come in low-key affairs, and while he is undoubtedly a Scotland star of the future, he knows he needs to play in some high-stakes Scotland games if he's to force his way into Gregor Townsend's squad for next year's World Cup.  

"I just played the one out of the three summer series games, which I obviously would have liked to play, but they were massive games. We were going to win all three of them.  

"I obviously would have liked to play the biggest games for South Africa away and stuff like that. But I'd only obviously played one at that time.  

"I probably wasn't really expecting to get picked against the Springboks." 

With New Zealand and Australia – who beat world champions South Africa at the weekend and leapfrogged Scotland in the world rankings - among the visitors to Murrayfield in November, McConnell is not short of motivation going into Edinburgh's first home game of the new URC season. 

"You have to play well for these four or five games [before the squad is picked].  

"I might still not even get you selected for the All Blacks game, but it's all you can really do." 

And when asked directly about his World Cup chances, McConnell again stressed he must be part of more high-pressure Scotland games if he's to earn a call-up.