“The recent figures ScotBlood posted last week, that donations have dropped under 2% in Scotland for the last year, it’s something that we’re trying to change and grow awareness.
“We have our Young Ambassador Programme, myself and one of the other girls, Megan, at the charity, we’ve been going into schools to help educate pupils. And we get some of the sixth-year students to set up the initiative in their school.
“We also have our Bloody Brilliant Uni Squad at places like Edinburgh, Stirling, to really grow education around blood donation and show that it’s not as daunting as it maybe seems.
“We’ve grown over the last six years and had loads of brilliant events, so it’s been nice over the past few years that something that was so dark for our family, something so good has come out of it.”
Smith will run out at Hampden Park to face Edinburgh in the first leg of the 1872 Cup on Saturday and, while he says Patrick may not have had much interest in the action itself, he would have relished such a special occasion.
“I don’t know if he would have been even slightly bothered about my rugby exploits, to be honest,” Smith smiles.
“He was never really a fan. I think maybe he would have enjoyed the big events, to say that he’d been in a big stadium or something like that, but I don’t think he was very bothered about the actual ins and outs of rugby.
“I think it’s brilliant [to play at Hampden]. We see Scotstoun as a fortress and the Warrior Nation are so important for us in these home games, especially these big home games.”
Now he comes face-to-face with some Scotland colleagues at what is better known as the national football stadium.
“You spend so much time with those Edinburgh boys in camp and you get to know them really well and then to face them twice a year back-to-back in these big stadiums, you want them to be proper occasions,” Smith added.
“I think Hampden allows more home support for us to make it a bit more hostile for them.
“We still retain the 1872 Cup, but I think it just shows the kind of standards that we set ourselves at the start of the season to be like, we’re not just happy to retain the 1872 Cup, we want to win both games. That’s the focus this year.”
