Scotland Career
Parks qualified to play for Scotland via his maternal grandfather who was born in Kilbirnie Ayrshire. He made his Scotland debut in February 2004 against Wales. He also played in all three 2005 Autumn tests, his positive attitude and commitment won praise from coach Frank Hadden. Parks' fortunes improved along with those of the Scotland team who enjoyed more success in the 2005–2006 season.
Despite being the choice No.10 for Scottish national coach Matt Williams and his successor Frank Hadden, he has on occasion appeared to have had a difficult time fitting into this role, particularly in the 2008 Six Nations games against England and Italy. However, in the tour of Argentina 2008 he scored a break away try to secure the second test victory, levelling the series 1–1.
His tactical kicking and ability to take long-range penalties are his main strong points, both for Scotland and the Glasgow Warriors, and are often cited as reasons for his continued participation in the Scottish national side. At times it appeared that Parks struggled to bring the same consistently high performance witnessed at Glasgow Warriors to the Scotland team. Parks has played in Six Nations, the 2007 World Cup, Scotland tours to Australia 2004, South Africa 2006 and Argentina 2008, 2010 .
His poor form for Glasgow Warriors and off field issues lead to him being axed from the Scotland set up throughout 2009. After initially being left out of Andy Robinson's 2010 Six Nations Championship squad against France he was called up against Wales where he was named man of the match. He subsequently won two more man of the match during the 6 Nations championship against Italy and Ireland.
Parks was an integral part of Scotland winning their first ever test series. Scotland won 2–0 against Argentina securing a 24–16 victory in Tucumán. A week later he played as part of the heroic 13–9 victory over Argentina in La Plata
Parks outlined his desire to add to his 53 caps in the November internationals against New Zealand, South Africa and Samoa and in the 2011 RWC.
"I've got 53 caps now and I want to build on that. My goal is to get to the World Cup to represent Scotland there." (Interview with BBC Scotland 28 August 2010)
On May 10, 2011 Parks was named in the provisional 40-man Rugby World Cup 2011 squad.
Parks made his first Rugby World Cup 2011 appearance in the 15-6 victory over Georgia where he scored all of the points (4P,1DG). In landing a drop goal in the 37th minute Parks furthered his Scottish drop goal record to 15.
In the last minute of the game against Argentina, which Los Pumas won 13-12, Parks missed the decisive drop goal. Following this match there has been criticism of Parks tactical sense, after he earlier scored a drop goal while Scotland had advantage close to the try line.
After wide criticism for his performance in the first match of the 2012 six-nations against England, Parks announced his immediate retirement from international rugby on the 7th of February 2012.
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