Burke feels force of destiny in Scotland debut

Fergus Burke could earn his second Scotland cap in the land of his birth

New Zealand-born Fergus Burke feels like "it was meant to be" after making his Scotland debut in the southern hemisphere.

The 25-year-old Saracens fly-half was in Gregor Townsend's squad for this year's Six Nations, but it was not until Friday's 29-14 summer tour defeat by Fiji that he earned his first cap.

It could be quickly followed by a second against Samoa at Eden Park in the land of his birth on Friday and, not surprisingly, he has "a fair few people" chasing him for tickets.

"I've had a few messages from people I haven't heard from for a while, but I'll hopefully get a good contingent of support there and it'll be cool," Burke said.

"It is a weird one. Obviously I was in for the Six Nations but didn't get a crack, so it is almost like this was the way it was meant to be when I get my first opportunity so my family could actually be here."

Darcy Graham was sent off after a second yellow card while Ewan Ashman was also sin-binned in Suva and Burke thinks the Scots can perform better against Samoa if they improve their discipline.

"I think in parts of that Fiji game we showed how good we are as a team when we get it right, but we got our discipline wrong and ended up making a lot more tackles than we needed to," he said.

Burke expects "a similar challenge to Fiji" but hopes to spend less time on defence against Samoa.

"I think they are going to be a little more structured than Fiji was - Fiji was quite loose and the looser the game got, the better they got," he suggested.

"I've got a feeling Samoa are going to kick a little bit more. We know how important this game is and we are pretty focused on getting it right."

Burke ended the game playing at full-back after Adam Hastings' introduction.

"I wasn't expecting that, but I played a little bit of full-back when I was still in New Zealand at Crusaders, so I felt reasonably comfortable there and I enjoyed playing with Adam as well," he added.

"I thought it was good when he came on and we probably got our most attacking in that last 10 minutes with ball in hand."