‘I’m not embarrassed to say Lions has been all I could think about’

Sione Tuipulotu says touring his homeland with the British and Irish Lions this summer has been “all I could think about” since the start of the year.

The Australia-born Scotland captain’s place in the squad was jeopardised by a pectoral injury that saw him miss the entire Six Nations.

However, the 28-year-old centre should return to the Glasgow Warriors team in the next couple of weeks and is grateful for the faith Andy Farrell and his Lions coaches have placed in him.

“I just want to take my opportunity now,” Tuipulotu told BBC Scotland. “I just want to repay the coaches by jumping back in there and proving why they selected me.

“I feel like I’m going to be a better player than what I was when I got hurt. I’m going to be more hungry, more desperate. I’m so excited.

Tuipulotu is one of eight Scots to have been selected, but says he had resigned himself to missing the tour when injury struck on the eve of the Six Nations.

He has not played since that training injury but it now close to a return.

“My dad was over at that time and he’ll be able to tell you I was walking around the house going, ‘I guess that’s me’,” he said. “I just thought that was the way that it panned out.

“I was playing the best rugby in my life and I got hurt. You battle your own emotions and stuff like that all the way up into selection saying, ‘am I even still being considered?’ and stuff like that.

“But then it all, the culmination of when finally your name gets read out, I can’t tell you that feeling. It’s euphoria, it feels like.