Canada v Scotland: Grant Gilchrist hails impact of Edinburgh coach Richard Cockerill

Gilchrist (left) will line up with Edinburgh team-mates Ben Toolis and Magnus Bradbury

When Grant Gilchrist talks about his elevation to the captaincy of the Scotland team to face Canada at the Commonwealth Stadium he goes back to pre-season with Edinburgh and a conversation he had with his new coach, Richard Cockerill.

Gilchrist thinks the world of Cockerill, that's obvious. He feeds off his straight-talking, his intensity, his uncompromising drive for higher standards.

Cockerill met Gilchrist last summer and gave him a dose of truth right between the eyes. He told him that he'd heard a lot of great things about him as a player but having watched him in action he couldn't see what everyone was talking about.

"Cockers has had a big impact on me," says Gilchrist, who was named captain for this game after Stuart McInally failed to recover from a calf injury in time.

"There was a full reset in pre-season. Whether he was just poking the bear or not, I don't know, but it worked and I knew I had to prove myself from nothing. It was brilliant, refreshing.

"I'm not the sort of person who wants to be held in any kind of esteem in any case. That was what he was being told by other people. He wasn't being told it by me. I just said, 'No problem, I'll go to work and prove to you what I'm about'."

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Things have gone full circle for Gilchrist. The 27-year-old lock was named Scotland captain for the summer tour of 2014 when Vern Cotter was taking his first steps as national team coach. Then he was named captain for the autumn, a series he never made because of a broken arm that wrote off his season.

The brutality of professional rugby is writ large in Gilchrist's story. The operation on his arm didn't quite work the first time around, so he had a second operation. That cost him more time in rehab. He made it back for the 2015 World Cup but tore his groin against the USA. In his comeback match after the groin, he broke his arm again.

Gilchrist will win his 23rd cap against Canada in Edmonton

This is a guy who has had to soldier his way back to the international fold, a man who says he's "honoured" to captain the side. "I was a young leader the last time I did it," he says. "I took to it pretty naturally, but I feel more equipped to lead the team now. Being injured makes me appreciate what I have a lot more.

"These experiences make you stronger, make you a better person and a better rugby player. Everybody hates being injured, but I'm in a better place now than I ever was."

Gilchrist will lead an inexperienced match-day squad in Edmonton, a team that possesses some street-smarts in Fraser Brown and Ruaridh Jackson and Dave Denton, but that's mostly made up of guys with single-figure caps or, in the case of James Lang, Jamie Ritchie, Adam Hastings and Lewis Carmichael, no cap at all.

"There's not a lot of caps, but there's old heads on those young shoulders," he says. "Guys like Magnus Bradbury could have been Edinburgh captain. (Bradbury was stripped of the job after a bout ill-discipline early in the season). I was right behind him as a great choice to captain Edinburgh and I think he'll do it again in the future.

"Jamie Ritchie could captain Edinburgh and could captain Scotland. These guys are young but they're not young when they get on the training pitch, They know what they're doing. There's a low amount of caps but there's not a low amount of voices. People are willing to stand up and say what they think, but it counts for nothing unless we perform."

'A great opportunity to address our poor away form'

It would be a stunner if Canada caused Scotland too many problems, but for Gilchrist there is a bitter memory to draw on in the fight against complacency.

He was in the Scotland team that struggled across the winning line against Canada four years ago in Toronto. It was an ugly grind, a game that the visitors were desperately fortunate to come out the right side of.

"This one is massive for Canada and it'll be the same for USA next week," says Gilchrist. "They'll be hugely motivated playing in front of their own crowd and they can take themselves to levels that they found in Toronto where they should have won the game.

"I played that day and it's up there with the biggest 'get out of jail free' cards. We probably, definitely, didn't deserve to win the game. A win is a win but that's as close it can come (to losing).

"What Gregor and the guys who played that day are saying is that we are not underestimating Canada and won't underestimate USA either. Scotland's got a relatively poor record in Canada so we need to make sure we are on our mettle.

"We have to make sure we handle our business properly. The first 20 minutes away from home is something we have to improve on, full stop. This tour is a great opportunity to address our poor form away from home.

"We need to be more consistent. That's one of the main goals of the tour - to improve our consistency over three games away from Murrayfield.

"It doesn't just happen for us at Murrayfield - we still have to work - but the majority of our best performances have been at home with the crowd there. We need to live by standards we set in the autumn and in the Six Nations. That starts here in Canada."