Young Gun: Ross Graham – Yorkshire Carnegie hooker
Carnegie gave the highly-rated Jack Walker his professional debut when he was only 16 and over the next four seasons they managed him well to make sure he’d get the exposure he needed to break through but never burned him out.
With Walker moving to Bath over the summer, Carnegie boss Bryan Redpath was looking for a hooker and came across Graham who had played a starring role in Scotland U20s reaching their highest finish at a Junior World Cup in 2015.
“I met up with Bryan Redpath last season and I decided that signing for Carnegie would be very good for my career development,” Graham told The Rugby Paper.
“I’m still very young but the way they looked after Jack Walker gave me confidence.
“Moving to Bath is a great opportunity for Jack and it’s a great opportunity for me to join Carnegie.
“They’ve got a lot of young players in the team and it’s great to know you’ll get your chance to prove your worth regardless of your age.
“Everyone at Carnegie welcomed me very well and it helped me settle really quickly in Leeds.
“I have had some good game time so far this season coming off the bench in all the games – which has been great.
“Playing in the Championship against some big forwards has been challenging for me but I very much enjoy it.”
Given his position, the set-piece, and especially the scrum, was always going to be the most challenging part of his move to the Championship.
But Graham is quickly learning the ropes and he is targeting a starting berth sooner rather than later.
He added: “I was part of the Edinburgh academy until last season playing most of my games in the Scottish Premiership with my home club Hawick.
“But the step up to the Championship is pretty big to be fair.
“The scrum has been the toughest thing for me to get right. When it comes to physicality or the other general stuff I feel fine but the scrum is lot more technical in the Championship and I’ve got to get to grips with it.
“I’m on a two-year contract which is great for me because I can just concentrate on getting used to senior rugby and polish my skills this season rather than focus too much on getting a new contract.
“I want to be in the squad as many times as I can this season and push for the starting shirt.
“As a team we’ve made a very positive start to the season so hopefully we can keep the results going and challenge London Irish for promotion.”
