'Like Outlander' - Schoeman all in with Scotland & Lions
The television show Outlander, writer and artist Kahlil Gibran and Perth's mining heritage don't often all get mentioned in the same media conference.Pierre Schoeman certainly comes across as one of the more philosophical interviewees in the British and Irish Lions camp touring Australia.The South Africa-born Scotland prop, 31, is one of eight players born outside the British Isles and Ireland in Andy Farrell's squad."If you're good enough to play for your country and then you're good enough to play for the Lions and you're selected, obviously you're going to do that," said Schoeman, who has 42 Scotland caps after qualifying through residency."Scotland is home for us, my wife and myself and other players as well. You embrace that, you fully take that on."It's like Outlander. You move to a different country and now that's your house. You live there. You buy into the culture and now to represent the British and Irish Lions, you fully buy into that, you fully submerge into that."Nothing else matters, not your past, not the future, it's about the now."Kahlil Gibran says it in one of his books quite well and that is, 'Yesterday's gone forever, tomorrow might never come, now is the time to live'."That's what you do as Lions. It's about the now, this tour that's what really matters."
Saturday's second warm-up match for the Lions has a Scottish connection of its own, taking place in Perth."It was massive for gold mining so we know all about Perth now," added Schoeman."We love Perth. Perth is actually from the Scottish Perth town. We know some great stats about it. It's the most isolated city in the world."We respect the Western Force, we know they're going to up the ante. It's a once in a lifetime for most of those blokes. They're going want to prove they're good enough to go against the British and Irish Lions, so we have to go beyond and prove why we're the British and Irish Lions."It's going to be a brilliant spectacle. It's going to be enjoyable."Schoeman featured for the final 21 minutes as the Lions lost 28-24 to Argentina in Dublin on Friday.Now the focus turns to tour matches in Australia and, alluding to Gibran's philosophy again, Schoeman is giving no thought to the first Test on 19 July."It's not focusing on what's ahead, it's about now," he said."You have to feel the responsibility of, what's it like, 50,000 fans or more coming to Australia, so you have a massive obligation, a responsibility."And if you're not pulling together, there's no space for dead weight on this team. Everybody needs to push in the same direction."
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