I've not booked a summer holiday yet - I want to play for Scotland

Gregor Hiddleston hasn’t booked a summer holiday yet and the Glasgow Warriors hooker hopes he might be involved in a foreign jaunt with Scotland in July.

His full focus at the moment is on club duties but the inaugural Nations Championship is just around the corner and Hiddleston has his fingers crossed.

Cordoba and Pretoria are nice this time of year and could be where the Dumfries-born forward wins his first cap.

Gregor Hiddleston during a Glasgow Warriors training session at Scotstoun Stadium, on May 25, 2026. | SNS Group

Hiddleston, who has won under-20 and A-team caps, was called into Scotland’s Six Nations squad in January but wasn’t involved in any of the matches, with head coach Gregor Townsend using George Turner, Ewan Ashman and Dave Cherry as his frontline hookers.

Cherry has hardly played since and there could be an opportunity for Hiddleston in July as Scotland take on Argentina and South Africa away before returning to Murrayfield to play Fiji in the opening phase of the new cross hemisphere competition.

Not booked any holidays yet

“I'd love to go on the Scotland summer tour,” said Hiddleston. “I've not booked any holidays yet but, yeah, we'll just see what happens. I think it'd be a great opportunity and if it came, I'd definitely grab it with both hands.”

Hiddleston, 24, is enjoying a notable campaign with Glasgow which is coming nicely to the boil. The Warriors host Connacht in the quarter-finals of the United Rugby Championship on Friday and know that a win over the Irish side would set them up for a semi-final against the Bulls or Munster the following week, with Murrayfield the likely venue.

It is a season alive with possibilities and Hiddleston has been at the heart of the action for Franco Smith’s side. This is his third year in the first team and he has played more games this season than previously. His 20 appearances include 11 starts, more than Johnny Matthews (nine) and Seb Stephen (four), the club’s other two senior hookers.

Hiddleston has shouldered the added responsibility well and appears ready to take the step up to Test level. With Matthews due to leave Glasgow for Montauban in the summer, Hiddleston will be the most experienced hooker at Scotstoun. He will be sad to see Matthews go and credits the Liverpudlian with an important role in his development.

Gregor Hiddleston, right, with D'arcy Rae, left, and Jamie Bhatti during Scotland A's match with Chile at Hive Stadium in November 2024. | SNS Group / SRU

“Obviously, Johnny's been here since I came here. It was the same when George Turner and Fraser Brown left. It's sad to see another hooker go, somebody you can talk to and they'll help you with things. So yeah, Johnny's going to be a big loss as well to the club. Obviously, you see what he's done here. You know, all the tries that he's scored and things like that.”

Having finished the regular URC season in top spot, Glasgow come into the play-offs in a good place but Connacht are also a team on the up. Stuart Lancaster’s squad won only two of their first nine games in the URC but their form since the end of January has been the best in the league. They won eight of their nine matches in the second half of the season to claim the eighth and final play-off place and the run included a 15-10 win over Glasgow in Galway, with head coach Lancaster getting one over on his son, Dan, who was playing at 10 for the Warriors.

It still stings

“They've been going really, really well recently,” said Hiddleston. “Dan Lancaster tells me they're well coached as well. So I think you see from their recent results getting into the top eight, they're going really well. So I think for us it's about focusing on our own performance and just making sure we're clinical in these big moments.”

Having lost one quarter-final at Scotstoun already this season, there is determination within the Glasgow camp to make sure they don’t squander their home advantage this time. The defeat by Toulon in the last eight of the European Champions Cup was tough to take, particularly after the squad had worked so hard to earn a top seeding in the knockout rounds.

“It was such a tough game and that's one that stung for a while and it's still stinging now,” said Hiddleston. “Obviously you've done all that hard work in Europe and we just fell short a bit in that game. But we've learned from that. We've reviewed it and yeah, we'll take the lessons from it.”

Glasgow Warriors' Gregor Hiddleston scores his side's third try as he is challenged by Toulon's Ben White during the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final at Scotstoun. | SNS Group

Hiddleston made his Glasgow debut in their URC-winning campaign two years ago and played in seven of their regular season games. He wasn’t involved in the play-offs but was at Loftus Versfeld as the Warriors defeated the Bulls 21-16 in the final, a valuable experience on what was Glasgow’s finest hour.

“I was over in South Africa, I was the travelling reserve,” he said. “That's what Franco said to me when I was over there: you come to these, you gain experience for when it's your turn. It was obviously so valuable being over there in South Africa and being in the thick of it without playing. It was a really good experience for me as a young player, to have seen that.”

Hiddleston started in the play-offs last season, in the quarter-final win over the Stormers and the semi-final defeat by Leinster. He now feels well equipped to deal with the rigours of sudden-death rugby.

“Whatever role I play, you just need to make sure you're going out there at your best,” he said. “You know, knockout rugby is a bit different to your normal league game. So things are going to be tight. But it's just important that we do our core skills well and everything well as a team.”