Rugby: Amateur answers All Blacks SOS

Daniel Braid is tackled by Kieran Read during an All Blacks training session in Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo / Getty Images

Alistair Hamilton was at home on Sunday night when he received the kind of phone call that leads to tremors down your spine.

The All Blacks were a man down in the front row, his teammate told him, and they wanted him to come in for some live scrummaging.

"I was a bit taken aback by that phone call and have been cacking myself since then," the 22-year-old prop said. "It was good, though. I learned a lot and it was good fun."

Hamilton, who plays his rugby for Edinburgh club side Currie RFC, was involved in a series of three-on-three drills under the watchful eye of scrum sage Mike Cron as they tried to work out a strategy for countering the higher body positions in the scrums - something that gave them some wobbles on opposition ball against England.

With Ben Franks invalided out with a bulging disc, they needed another big body with experience so an SOS was made to the Scotland amateur rep.

"Compared to what we do it's a lot lower and a lot tighter," Hamilton said.

"Even just three-on-three the hits are a lot harder." John Afoa was another with a front-row seat in Cron's class and said one of the biggest differences they noticed last week was the volume of scrums compared to the Tri Nations.

"It was hard work. There were a lot more set-pieces. We had 24 scrums in the weekend, so you're playing under fatigue. It's taxing," Afoa said.

"When you come up against teams from up here, they scrum a lot differently. It's a lot higher, there's a lot more movement and you get a lot more collapses so we're making sure we stay [low]."

"If we do that we can get the ball in, get the ball out and play our natural game."

Afoa might find himself covering hooker at Murrayfield. With Mealamu's suspension, an injury to either Hika Elliot or Andrew Hore, who is just returning from a long lay-off, Afoa is just a twist of fate, or twist of knee, from a new experience.

As for Hamilton, he dreams of winning a cap for Scotland, but the immediate future is more grassroots.

"It's something to tell the boys in the pub in the weekend - I scrummed with the All Blacks."