World Cup and Celtic offer glimpse to what rugby could be - 'need to be encouraged'

Growing up in Australia, the centre said he had never previously appreciated the scale of the tournament and the impact it has on so many lives.

The Scotland skipper admitted he was a little envious of its appeal and would love to see rugby dusted with a sprinkling of the World Cup stardust.

The oval ball game moves into new territory this weekend with the Nations Championship, a competition which is designed to bring a more formalised and competitive edge to the old summer and autumn tours.

In truth, it doesn’t appear to have captured too much of the wider sporting public’s imagination thus far but the organisers will hope that changes over the next three weekends. There are certainly some cracking games coming up, including on Saturday New Zealand v France, Australia v Ireland, South Africa v England and, of course, Argentina v Scotland in Cordoba.

The Nations Championship matches are available free-to-air on ITV but it was always going to be difficult to compete against a World Cup. Steve Clarke’s Scotland may have been eliminated in the group stage but there still plenty of interest in the tournament among their rugby counterparts.

“We’ve been watching most of the World Cup games,” said Tuipulotu. “We sat down and watched England the other day and all the other games as well. I think you sit back and watch something of this magnitude and you realise how big this sport is in the world. And it gives us a little bit of perspective, I think. We watched the Argentina game [versus Jordan] in Buenos Aires and just to experience that and see how passionate their people are around their national team.

“I think there's no difference between that and their rugby team as well. I just think South American people are really passionate in general.”

Tuipulotu, 29, has experienced professional rugby in Australia, Japan and - for the last five years - Scotland and says he would love his sport to be thrust into the spotlight like football has been these past few weeks.

‘I hope rugby can go in that direction’

“I think about how football is supported around the world and I've been a little bit taken back. And I think travelling to Argentina has opened my eyes about how big this event really is and how much it means to people. I hope rugby can go in that direction. I think we need to broaden our horizons a little bit.”

It’s why he is fully behind the efforts of sports promoter Eddie Hearn and his Matchroom team who have dipped their toes into rugby recently, adding Henry Pollock and Finn Russell to their stable in a bid to have them cross over more into the mainstream. Tuipulotu wants to see characters like theirs projected onto a wider audience and freed from the more sterile confines of in-house media teams.

“I like the new thing of Henry and Finn going with [Hearn],” said Tuipulotu. “I think they need to be encouraged, just making players more accessible. When they get in front of the camera, we want to hear what they really think. I think that's what the fans want to hear and I think that's what makes football different.

“People follow players for who they are and now they're playing for their national country. People are so emotional to follow these players because I think maybe their personality is more there at the surface for everyone to see.

“So I think the more rugby can lean towards that way and not everyone being robots and getting in front of camera and giving, you know, what the social media guy tells me to say and things like that. I think the more we can lean away from that and be ourselves, the closer we'll get to that. I think football is a long way away from us but we can bridge that gap because we do have passionate fans, I just think they're crying out to know the players at a deeper level.”

Playing in Glasgow has given Tuipulotu an insight into the fervour around the city’s football clubs and he would love to see similar levels of fan intensity around the Warriors.

“I know Glasgow is notoriously a football city,” he said. “Even me, I've gone along to a couple of the Celtic games over the last year just to see what it's all about. And, jeez, like what an atmosphere and what a following they have at a club like that. So I think just the more I want to push in that direction.

“Obviously they've got years and years of history at those clubs, but, you know, that's what I want for rugby. That's what I want for the Glasgow Warriors to have passionate fans like that in the crowd that really care about the team. And a lot of what I gained from going to watch Celtic, a lot of those supporters, that's their life, you know? That's their life to support Celtic and it's quite refreshing to see that. We don't have that definitely back in Australia, you know? So I'm going to say, it's pretty cool.”