On 7 March, during Scotland’s round-four clash of the Six Nations’ tournament, you could feel the excitement in the Erskine Stewart Melville community when FP George Turner stepped onto the Murrayfield Stadium pitch in front of a packed crowd.
The thirty-three-year-old, who currently plays with Harlequins but is moving to fellow English club Newcastle Red Bulls after the summer, earned his 54th international cap that day and played a major role in securing Scotland’s third place finish overall in the standings.
The excitement was cranked even higher when FP Freddy Douglas also stepped onto the pitch for the last 14 minutes of the game, earning his second international cap and helping Scotland close out an amazing 50-40 bonus point victory against eventual Six Nations’ winner France.
“I’m just hoping [Freddy] gets more opportunities in the next while at the top level to show everyone what he can do because he is very talented, while George Turner has been a stellar performer for Scotland for a number of years now,” says Stuart Edwards, our Head of Rugby.
The two players represent a long legacy of rugby excellence at the school that Mr Edwards and the rest of the rugby coaching staff have worked diligently to nurture and grow.
Seeing George and Freddy compete at the international level inspires current students, making them realise that level of play is possible.
It helps that our FPs are still so connected to the school community. Last year, Freddy and FP Ross Thompson (2017), who plays for Edinburgh Rugby, visited our U16 team before the Scottish Cup finals, talking to students about the pathways they took to play professionally.
The talk seems to have paid off as this year, 30 of our students across U16, U17, and U18 have been selected to clubs within the Edinburgh regional set-up, including four players in the newly created National Talent Pathway Programme.
This doesn’t even include the success of recent leavers Nairn Moncrieff (2024) and Calum Jessop (2025) who represented Scotland’s U20 team at Six Nations. Nairn started all games for Scotland while Calum came off the bench several times, an impressive feat for someone who left school last summer.
We also had Oli Anderson (2025) selected to the wider U20 squad. While he didn’t get any game time during Six Nations he’s been playing well in the Premiership for Melrose this season.
The success of our rugby programme, Mr Edwards explains, is that we have connections all the way from grassroots clubs up to the national level. Whether a student’s goal post-graduation is to play rugby for Scotland or play recreationally, we can put them in a position to make that happen.
“A big part of my job is that transitional piece post-Christmas,” Mr Edwards says. “At that stage, the final year students are thinking about where they are going to university or what they want to do after school and, rugby-wise, I try to help them out by matching them with student programmes and clubs that will be right for them and will help their aspirations in the game.
“It is so good to see students from the school going on to play in so many different places when they leave and we also have strong links with Stewart’s Melville RFC, so that players can go there and continue playing at Inverleith for the club.”
