After missing a year of Test rugby through injury, Darcy Graham wore a smile as wide as Murrayfield following a scintillating individual display against Fiji that reminded Scotland exactly what they had been missing.
The electric winger, 27, bagged four tries and injected the sort of pace, creativity and unpredictably that encapsulates what this team is at its best.
Scotland at their best in recent years have tended to have Graham in the thick of the action, and if they are to spring shocks on the Springboks next weekend, the Hawick man will likely need to come to the fore again.
Graham beamed as he spoke to BBC Scotland after the game: “It wasn’t bad, was it?
“I loved pulling that jersey back on.”
You will go a long way to find a player more passionate about representing his country than Graham, but in the hell of his injury struggles of the past 12 months, doubts started to creep in as to whether he would ever make it back to the Test arena.
“When you’re out that long, you start wondering when it’s going to happen again, if it’s going to happen again,” he said.
“You have doubts in your head, but I’m just chuffed to be back. The next thing for me is to chase that 50th cap – that’s my boyhood dream.”
Graham’s four scores took his Test return to 28 tries in 40 Tests – a record to stand alongside the best in international rugby.
His fourth try drew him level with Duhan van der Merwe as Scotland’s record try scorer, until his Edinburgh team-mate notched his 29th international try late in the game.
“I joined him for five minutes,” Graham laughed. “It’s good fun, good competition between me and Duhi. We’ll take it [the record] all the way into the 30s I reckon.”
