Young Gun: Callum Hunter-Hill – London Scottish lock

Callum Hunter-Hill is not sure how long he will stay in London but he is looking to make the best of his time in the English capital to gain valuable experience with London Scottish in the Championship.
The 19-year-old joined the Exiles nearly a month ago from Glasgow Warriors as part of the deal between the club and the Scottish Rugby Union.
Having made his PRO12 debut earlier this season for the Warriors, Hunter-Hill is hungry for more and he knows the opportunity to gain
regular game-time in England‘s second tier will be most valuable to him.
“I’m not entirely sure what the plan is for me regarding the rest of the season as there are a lot of pieces to the jigsaw but I’m not focussing on that,” he told The Rugby Paper.
“I’m loving being at Scottish right now and I’m looking forward to playing more in the Championship. I played 40 minutes in my first week which was great but I picked up a knock and couldn’t play after that.
“It seems to be a great league for a youngster to gain experience in terms of skills and physicality. That’s definitely a notch above what I had experienced in club rugby back home.
“It was great to make my PRO12 debut against Zebre in October and I also played against Harlequins in pre-season. I loved getting a taste of what it takes to play at the highest level and if anything it made me even hungrier for more.
“I know what I need to do to break into the Warriors’ first team and Scottish will play a crucial role in my development.”
Standing 6ft 7in and tipping the scales at 18st 3lbs (116kg), it is no surprise to see Hunter-Hill fall into the ‘bruising lock’ category, but there is a big step up between age-grade and senior rugby and he is looking forward to taking on older and bigger forwards to bridge the gap in physicality.
Doing so will put him in good stead to represent Scotland U20s in the Six Nations once again, with the World Cup in Georgia next summer also in his sights.
He added: “I enjoy that bruiser role but I’ve got to get used to doing it against bigger guys. I’ve got to become more dominant in the tackle area at senior level and playing in the Championship will help me do just that.
“My big goal this year is to feature and play a prominent role in the U20s Six Nations with Scotland. I played last season so I hope I can get involved again and maybe play a senior role in the squad.
“There’s also the JWC in Georgia and from what I hear it’s going to be amazing there. They’re so happy to host an international tournament that it should be an amazing experience. Hopefully I’ll get there to see it for myself.”