Six Nations 2012: Scotland's David Denton keeps his head when all about him are losing theirs Even now, he is still struggling to understand how it happened, but an honesty session between the Scotland players has helped. "It's very important that everyone stands up and has their say," Denton offers. You have to stand up for yourself and your team, and we're a mature enough group to accept that. Mature enough? Denton had gone into the Calcutta Cup game a day short of his 22nd birthday, in only his second season as a professional and with precisely 23 minutes of Test experience under his belt. Yet he was the game's dominant figure and there was nothing preposterous in the suggestion that he had taken a huge step towards becoming a Lion as well. Yet you don't have to wind the clock too far back to find another Denton, fresh off the plane from Zimbabwe and shivering through his first Scottish winter in the Edinburgh Accies second XV. Scottish competition rules meant he was barred from first XV rugby, but club sources suggest he was some distance short of that standard anyway. However, the acclimatisation process was swift. Scarcely a year later, Denton was signing a contract with Edinburgh. Another year on and he had a Scotland A cap, international sevens experience and a place in Andy Robinson's World Cup training squad. Along the way, he had rocketed past a host of promising Scottish back row players. And he has kept on rocketing since. Scotland's rugby authorities have cast a wide net in recent years, so capping a Zimbabwean-born (to a Scottish mother), South Africa-educated player is not a matter of great note. But if he has risen without trace as far as most Scots are concerned, there is true-blue Scottish blood in those Denton veins. His uncle, Johnnie Cole-Hamilton, is an executive director of the R & A; his grandfather was head of the Clydesdale Bank. His middle name, Kipling, reflects another prestigious connection. "The relationship with [Rudyard] Kipling is on my dad's side," he explains. I think he was grandfather's great uncle once removed, but I am not totally sure. I have read the books. The Just So stories are a common read in my house. But if it's one thing to know how the elephant got its trunk and the leopard got its spots, it takes a far greater imaginative leap to figure out how Scotland can get out of the rut in which they have failed to score a try for the past four matches. Denton gave the Scots all the go-forward they needed against England, but their composure deserted them each time they closed in on the line. His best guess? "We've worked a lot on our line breaks this week," he suggests. We have the players in the team who are more than capable of scoring tries, but it's about making the breaks together. We need to be aware of where players will be. The irony is that Edinburgh have been scoring tries for fun this season. Playing mostly at blindside for the capital side, Denton's attacking role has been restricted, but he has contributed a couple of touchdowns of his own. Nor were they mere blasts round the corner of a ruck. The one he collected against Racing Metro in Paris last month involved a 45-metre sprint that started with a burst past three players and involved a sidestep past a winger along the way. As self-effacing as he is off the pitch, Denton backs himself to the hilt on it. Even so, few players have ever lived up to their promise quite as brilliantly as he did last weekend. "A lot of it is natural," he says. I just try to go out and play the way I normally do. You just have to forget that you're playing for your country and try to treat it as any other game. This is the way I've been playing all season for Edinburgh. He makes it sound too easy, but then he makes it look too easy as well. Just watch him. Watch him very, very closely.