Nikki Walker (born 5 March 1982) is a Scottish

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player coach for

Hawick RFC Hawick Rugby Football Club is an semi-pro rugby union side, currently playing in the Scottish Premiership and Border League. The club was founded in 1885 and are based at Mansfield Park at Hawick in the Scottish Borders. Splinter from Hawick and ...

, who is retired from international competition having won 24 caps for

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. He has played on the

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

for teams in Scotland, Wales and England, winning the

Pro12 The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. For sponsorship reasons the league is known as the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in ...

twice with the

Ospreys The osprey (; ''Pandion haliaetus''), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and a wingspan of . It is ...

. Nikki is sponsored by Hotel Chocolat’s Velvitiser range.

Rugby career

Walker was born 5 March 1982 in

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

, Scotland. He was part of the Hawick team than won the domestic club double in 2001–02. He then joined the

Border Reivers Border Reivers were Cattle raiding, raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border. They included both Scotland, Scottish and England, English people, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims' nationality.Hay, D. "E ...

in 2002. His first cap for Scotland came in November 2002 in an Autumn international against

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

Murrayfield Murrayfield is an area to the west of Edinburgh city centre in Scotland. It is to the east of Corstorphine and north of Balgreen, Saughtonhall and Roseburn. The A8 road (Scotland), A8 road runs east–west through the south of the area. Murra ...

. In 2006 he left Scotland for the Ospreys based in Swansea. This would prove to be a very successful period, playing a key role in the Ospreys winning the RaboDirect Pro 12 in 2006 and 2010, and earning him a recall to the National side. He made his first appearance for Scotland in more than four years as a replacement against Wales in the Six Nations 2007. He also started for Scotland against France, four weeks later, and scored a try in the seventh minute. He then scored his next try against Canada in the 2009 autumn Test in Aberdeen, repeating this again this time against Samoa in the 2010 autumn Test. He then scored his first Murryfield try for four years against Italy in the 2011 Six Nations Match which Scotland went on to win giving Italy the wooden spoon He was five minutes away to be going to the 2011 Rugby World Cup when he got injured in the warm-up match with Italy. In May 2012 he left the

to join

Worcester Warriors Worcester Warriors are a professional rugby union club based in Worcester, England. They most recently played in Premiership Rugby, the top division of English rugby union, before being suspended by the Rugby Football Union, RFU in September 2 ...

. After 10 months with

, Walker joined

Edinburgh Rugby Edinburgh Rugby (formerly Edinburgh Reivers, Edinburgh Gunners) is one of the two professional rugby union teams from Scotland. The club competes in the United Rugby Championship, along with the Glasgow Warriors, its oldest rival. Edinburgh play ...

in the summer of 2013. For the 2014–15 season, Walker is a player/coach with Hawick RFC, while still contracted to Edinburgh Rugby

References

External links

Ospreys profileScotland profile
1982 births Living people Border Reivers players Hawick Linden RFC players Hawick RFC players Ospreys (rugby union) players People educated at Hawick High School Rugby union players from Aberdeen Scotland international rugby union players Scottish rugby union players Worcester Warriors players Edinburgh Rugby players Rugby union wings 2003 Rugby World Cup players 2007 Rugby World Cup players {{Scotland-rugbyunion-bio-1980s-stub