Scotland full-back Chris Paterson revealed a first-team place rather than setting another record has been his main driving force heading into his fourth World Cup.
If the 33-year-old plays, he will become Scotland’s first ever player to compete in four Rugby World Cups having already entered the record books as his country’s top appearance holder with 105 caps and top scorer with 786 points.
The Edinburgh star though is focussed purely on nailing down the No.15 shirt ahead of Scotland’s opening game against Romania.
“It’s a huge goal of mine to make this World Cup, delighted to do that but the hard work starts again as soon as tomorrow when we get back to training and we try and fight for a starting place,” he said.
“We train as a squad of 38 for three months, a lot of hard training going in and unfortunately there’s eight guys that miss out so I certainly feel sorry for them and I think about them but from a personal point of view I’m delighted to be in that squad of 30 and fighting hard to hopefully get a starting position.
“The announcement was probably one of the most nerve-wracking things that I have done.
“We were announced at a meeting and the nerves were jangling, and way back in ’99 it was a phone call you were waiting for so that fuel and the desire to do well never leaves you.”
Paterson was part of the squad that bowed out to Argentina in the quarter-finals in the 2007 World Cup – a tournament noted more for its kicking rather than running rugby.
But Paterson, who started three games at full-back during the 2011 RBS 6 Nations, is expecting the standard of rugby to revert to a more supporter-friendly spectacle.
He said: “I think we’ll see a different World Cup to the one we saw in 2007, hopefully a quicker game, a more attack minded game. It was pretty defensive orientated in 2007.
“The game of rugby’s changed and I think it changes almost in four year cycles.
“It’s certainly different, there’s far more scrutiny, far more interest in the game globally certainly but from a players point of view it’s still the same, you want to do well, you want to be selected you’re absolutely delighted when the call comes.”