Who is Rory Sutherland: Ten things you should know about the Scotland prop

Get the lowdown on the Edinburgh loosehead

Who is Rory Sutherland: Ten things you should know about the Scotland prop

Rory Sutherland completed a remarkable comeback from a career-threatening injury to be selected for the British & Irish Lions 2021 tour to South Africa.

He is known mostly for his brilliant scrummaging, but here are ten more facts about the Edinburgh loosehead.

Ten things you should know about Rory Sutherland

1. He was born on 24 August 1992 in Melrose, at the heart of the Scottish Borders. The town is the birthplace of rugby sevens and hosts a large festival, the Melrose Sevens, every April.

2. He attended school in Hawick and later playing for the town’s Scottish Premiership side. Hawick is also the hometown of fellow Lion Stuart Hogg.

Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland and Stuart Hogg both have strong ties to Hawick (Getty Images)

3. Loosehead hasn’t always been his position of choice – he played as a back-row in amateur rugby before transitioning to prop at Hawick.

4. Edinburgh signed Sutherland in 2014 from Scottish Premiership side Gala and he was given an opportunity in the team straightaway due to injuries to Alasdair Dickinson and Wicus Blaauw.

5. In 2017 he tore his adductor muscle clean off his pelvis while warming up for an Edinburgh match against Harlequins. The only option was a bilateral adductor reconstruction, which meant he spent 13 months injured.

6. Sutherland spent three of those months in a wheelchair, unable to even leave the house.

7. He made his international debut in the final round of the 2016 Six Nations against Ireland. Scotland lost 35-25 in Dublin, but still finished fourth in that year’s championship.

8. One of his main hobbies outside rugby is fishing – he often goes with Edinburgh hooker Dave Cherry.

9. He is a qualified electrical mechanical engineer.

10. He has a wife, Tammy, and two children, Mason and Hamish. The pair married in August 2020, after the wedding had been delayed on four occasions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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