{"id":301719,"date":"2025-11-22T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301719\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T15:52:10","slug":"i-never-really-thought-id-get-anywhere-near-something-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301719\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I never really thought I\u2019d get anywhere near something like this’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

George Turner admitted he could never have imagined winning 50 caps for Scotland<\/a> as the Harlequins<\/a> hooker prepares for his landmark appearance against Tonga<\/a> in the final Test of the autumn series on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old appeared to have ended his international career when he left Glasgow<\/a> to move to Japan<\/a> for the 2024-25 campaign.<\/p>\n

But Turner returned to the mix in the summer after moving back to the UK to sign for Harlequins and is now relishing his first Murrayfield start since March 2024 after substitute outings in the defeats by New Zealand<\/a> and Argentina.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really thought I\u2019d get anywhere near something like this, I\u2019m really looking forward to doing it,\u201d the forward said in a Scottish Rugby interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last couple of weeks, a couple of other boys (Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe) have had their 50th cap and they\u2019re huge big players.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Scotland <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tonga <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really cool that I\u2019ve also made that achievement. Initially, I never thought I\u2019d get there, but in the last couple of years, it\u2019s definitely been a goal and a target to hit, and seeing a lot of boys getting it and those special games and days have been really cool.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I missed a few games last season with being away, but then getting back on the summer tour and then watching the first game back here in Murrayfield (against the United States), watching that with my son was really special.<\/p>\n

\u201cI missed that feeling of coming out to play here and I\u2019m really excited to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner made his debut against Samoa<\/a> in 2017 and counts his second cap against New Zealand as well as the 2021 victories away to England<\/a> and France<\/a> among his highlights.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI loved playing rugby growing up and I get a lot of people talk about how they dreamed of doing it (playing for Scotland), but I just never thought it would happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach camp and each time I got involved before I started playing, I was just so happy to be there learning and training and being in that environment. Then obviously getting those caps and getting involved, you just want more.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never sit back and think, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll get loads of these\u2019. Each one is really special and it\u2019s really cool being involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner will be joined in the front row on Sunday by his former Glasgow team-mate Zander Fagerson<\/a>, who will make his first appearance since April following calf and knee problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s trained two weeks now, so he seems ready,\u201d said head coach Gregor Townsend. \u201cWe train pretty full-on, so he\u2019s had scrums this week, we\u2019ve had a lot of live tackling.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was good the previous week but obviously we didn\u2019t want to take any risk with him on the back of one full week\u2019s training, but now he\u2019s had two weeks\u2019 training, he should be good to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Turner admitted he could never have imagined winning 50 caps for Scotland as the Harlequins hooker prepares…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-301719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}