Sione Tuipulotu set to join exclusive Greenock Wanderers club with Lions start
A SCOTLAND rugby player with family ties to Greenock is set to join an exclusive club on Friday.
Sione Tuipulotu has been named in the starting line-up for the British and Irish Lions' match against Argentina in Dublin - with the squad looking to say farewell on a high note before boarding the plane for their tour of Australia.
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(Image: Andrew Milligan/ PA Wire) He is the first Greenock Wanderers member to receive a Lions call-up in over 100 years, following in the footsteps of James Reid Kerr, who was chosen for the first-ever 'British Isles' tour to South Africa in 1910.
Tuipulotu is one of four Scottish players chosen to face the Pumas for the 'Lions 1888 Cup' on Friday, with Pierre Schoeman and Duhan van der Merwe also in the starting XV and Tupulotu's Warriors team-mate Scott Cummings on the bench.
Tuipulotu was born in Australia but qualifies for Scotland, and therefore for the Lions, through his Greenock-born grandmother, Jacqueline Thomson, who grew up a stone's throw from the Wanderers' Octavia Terrace home before emigrating 'down under' in the 1960s.
Both Tuipulotu and his brother Mosese, also a Scotland international, were given honorary Wanderers life membership, along with Jacqueline, last year.
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Though Reid Kerr was selected for that 1910 tour, injury meant he was unable to play - meaning that, barring any last-minute hitches, Friday night will see Tuipulotu become the first Greenock Wanderers member to play for the Lions.
The Scotland captain previously revealed how emotional a moment it was to learn he'd made it into Farrell's squad after cruelly missing out on Scotland's Six Nations campaign earlier this year.
He said: 'When I got hurt, that's all that came into my mind, is that I wouldn't be able to play for Scotland in the Six Nations when I'd just been named skipper, and it felt like I let the country down a little bit.
'Then you add in the fact that it was a Lions year, and I'll be blatantly honest, I thought it (Lions chance) was over for me.
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'It was a natural reaction to be so worried when you can't be out there influencing the situation.
"Hearing your name, you get the relief and also the reassurance of what you've done already. Now it's just about coming back and proving I'm a better player than when I got hurt.'
Kick off in Dublin is 8pm.
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