Innovative Scots were 'ahead of the game'

Published on Friday 13 March 2009 21:15

Class of '84 recall how they emerged from off radar to clinch only the nation's second ever Grand Slam

AT THE start of 1984 there were few people around who had witnessed Scotland winning a Grand Slam, and perhaps even fewer who thought they would see it happen that year. Having lost all but one of their games in the previous year's Five Nations Championship, the Scots were not expected even to come close to emulating their predecessors of 1925 by producing a clean sweep.

But behind that bald statistic of one win out of four in 1983 lay a more complex and promising picture. Scotland had lost by just two points to Ireland, then by four against both France and Wales, before taking the Calcutta Cup at Twickenham by 22 points to 12. When they lost, it was not by much.

What is more, the Lions tour in the summer of 1983 had had a beneficial effect on them, as had a 25-25 draw with New Zealand later in the year. As they travelled down to Cardiff for their opening game of that year's championship, the Scotland squad may not have felt they were destined to win that game and the succeeding three, but they did enjoy a burgeoning self-belief, which had been helped by the fact that they had won in Wales in style on their previous visit.

"We had been unlucky in '83," David Johnston, the centre, recalled this week. "There was a good team developing throughout 81 and 82, and we didn't become a bad team in '83.

"We had gone to Cardiff and won in '82 for the first time in a long time, and we had gone to Australia that summer and beaten them at home. From the early 80s until 86, when we shared the championship and should have won the Grand Slam, we had a very good group of players.

"I suppose at the start of the 1984 season it was the case that not much was expected of Scotland. The New Zealand game in '83 might have got people thinking differently if they had been looking, but people didn't care so much then about what was happening up here, and in those days we could creep up on other countries in the Five Nations by dint of working really hard on our game away from the eyes of the world. We were much better organised than other countries, and in 1984 I think we probably did catch people unawares, for a combination of reasons.

"By the same token, we could be taken by surprise. We might face an Irish team containing three people we had never heard of, or a French team about which we really had very little intelligence."

But with an innovative coach in Jim Telfer, it was Scotland who stood to gain most from that relative ignorance amongst the five competing countries. "We were ahead of the game," Johnston continued.

"The influence on our coaches, and in particular on Jim Telfer, was very definitely New Zealand. Our rugby was pretty much forward-based, and I spent a lot of time chasing kicks, but we also played some good rugby with it, as Cardiff in '82 had shown.

"And although we were pretty conservative at times, you've got to walk before you can run. In my first game we won for the first time in, I think, 13 games, and when we won in Ireland it was Jim Renwick's first away win.

"So no wonder Jim Telfer said 'Let's get the forwards sorted, and then the half-backs sorted, and then we'll take care of the outside backs when we get there'."

And, while Telfer remained a critical influence, by 1984 the players were also very capable of taking care of themselves. Jim Aitken, the loosehead prop, was the captain and indisputably in charge on the field, but there were a number of others whose experience made them very capable of taking on leadership roles.

"Coaches were thin on the ground," Johnston went on. "Most captains in club rugby were, if not coaches, at least taking training every week.

"And we had a lot of current or recent club captains. Probably the whole Scottish team had positions of responsibility in their clubs, and with that comes a maturity and an awareness of what's going on."

21 January, 1984: Wales 9, Scotland 15

If in recent years Scotland have often journeyed to the Principality more in trepidation than hope, quarter of a century ago they were cautiously confident.

Johnston again. "Whilst Wales had a lot of good players, they were not of the standing of the rugby gods of the '70s.

"They had been found to be human two years previously, and on the Lions tour. And they had been slightly fortunate at Murrayfield in 1983, so we were pretty confident we would beat them."

John Rutherford, the stand-off whose partnership with scrum-half Roy Laidlaw was critical to the team's success, has similar recollections both of the background to the game and of the match itself. "A lot of us had been on the Lions tour, and Jim Telfer was the coach. We'd had a good, tough summer, and working every day with the boys from England, Wales and Ireland you kind of lost any inferiority complex.

"Having won in Cardiff in 1982 probably had a huge impact on the squad. But we were bloody lucky to win it in '84. In the last minute they had a blind-side move and their scrum-half dropped the ball going over the line."

4 February, 1984: Scotland 18, England 6

Then as now, the English game had playing resources that Scotland could only dream of, but England's selectors could not agree on how best to use the embarrassment of riches at their disposal. The result was an unsettled side which Scotland were happy to welcome to Murrayfield on the second weekend of the championship. "We were probably better organised and focused as a group of players than many other nations," Johnston remembers.

"We kind of knew what we were doing, and it worked in that year. England were going towards being focused on their leading club, but it wasn't a particularly settled pack – and a pack that our guys were keen to have a go at."

Much of the credit for that superior organisation went to Telfer. Twenty years after a match-winning Calcutta Cup performance as a back-row forward, the coach was able to enjoy victory from the sidelines – although, as he recalls, with two games to go the celebrations were muted.

"The 1984 win was obviously a big one, and a great result for Scotland, but it was not such a big deal at the time for two reasons really. The first was that Scotland had beaten England the year before, which ended the 12-year wait to win again at Twickenham, and the second was that it was only the second game of the championship. And there was the fact that we won it easy. It was a wet day and we changed our tactics to reflect that: we kicked on top of Dusty Hare and that also put him off his goal-kicking.

"Our forwards were far better than England's that day with David Leslie outstanding, and David Johnston scored the first try to set us on our way. Euan Kennedy ran in to the posts for a great try in the second half and two late penalties from Peter Dods took us away from them."

3 March 1984: Ireland 9, Scotland 32

In the 1990s Scotland would accumulate an enviably strong record against the Irish, but in 1984 there was certainly no presumption that victory was there for the taking.

Johnston recalls: "We'd played well in Ireland and lost twice in my experience, so we weren't at all comforted by the fact it was Ireland and not England or Wales.

"I think Willie Duggan chose to play into the wind, and he gave away a lot of penalties. We were miles ahead pretty quickly, not having tried that hard."

The victory could have come at a heavy price, as a knock left Roy Laidlaw dazed. If the scrum-half had been diagnosed with concussion his championship could have been over, but he soldiered on, as Rutherford remembers.

"Roy scored two tries in the first half, then he took a knock and got himself athlete's migraine, as we called it at the time. Then Gordon Hunter came on at half-time to win his first cap, and he ran into a supporter at the end and broke his cheekbone. So that could have been us without either scrum-half, but fortunately Roy was able to play against the French."

17 March 1984: Scotland 21, France 12

As Scotland had just won their first Triple Crown since 1938, frenzied celebrations followed the win in Dublin. But the players were intent on going a step further and claiming the Grand Slam by beating France, who were themselves undefeated when they came to Murrayfield.

Rutherford: "That was a hard, hard game. You don't realise at the time that you're playing against such wonderful players, but there were quite a few in the French team that day.

"We did well to win that game. They were up for it and it was very even for a long time. Then Jim Calder got his break, and after that try we were confident we would go on and win."

As the final whistle blew and the party began, there was no disputing the fact that Scotland were worthy champions. What was a matter of contention, however, and perhaps remains so to this day, was the question of who their most important players were, and who if any of them could be called world class.

For many, the Laidlaw-Rutherford partnership stood above the rest. The team themselves, including those such as Johnston who valued the half-backs' skills above all others', were well aware of the importance of the captain. "He's a hard man, and people respected him," is Rutherford's verdict on Aitken. "Jim got the best out of the team across the XV, but particularly across the forwards."

Rutherford also believes that another forward deserves special mention for his performances that year, though he also pointed out that two of the truly great names of Scottish rugby were no more than onlookers. "David Leslie was just on fire that season.

"I don't know how you measure world class, but a lot of players were at the top of their game then. In fact we had two players on the bench who were world class – Jim Renwick and Andy Irvine."

Renwick would go on to win his final cap that summer, on the tour to Romania. Irvine, however, would never play for his country again, after doing everything but get on the field in that final game against France.

As a utility backs replacement, Irvine thought his time had come in the first half of the decider against the French when both Peter Dods, the full-back, and Roger Baird, the winger, needed treatment. "I was summoned from the grandstand and told to warm up in the car park behind the main stand," he wrote in his autobiography, published in 1985.

" I had loosened up properly and stretched every muscle in an intensive ten-minute burst of activity when the chairman of the selectors, Ian McGregor, called me into the tunnel and more or less told me I would be going on for either Dods or Baird, whoever was the more seriously injured.

"Part of me was aching to burst out of the tunnel and on to the pitch so I could have a go against France and share in a moment of history. Yet part of me was apprehensive – I was fully aware that my distinct lack of match practice and match fitness might let down the rest of the team.

"When the message came back during half-time that both players considered themselves fit enough to continue my instant reaction was actually relief."

Twenty-five years on, that Grand Slam remains one of the great achievements in Scottish sport. It was emulated six years later, and arguably in more dramatic style as the climactic victory came against the English, but for Telfer, the length of time which had elapsed since the one previous occasion means it still stands out. "I still look back on that now as my greatest experience with Scotland because it was the first Grand Slam for nearly 60 years," he said. "It was a special time, after many years of winning just a handful of games, and it was very nice to be a part of it."

Many of those involved will meet up next week for a commemorative dinner, Rutherford among them. "It was a great occasion for a country like ours," is how the stand-off sums up that Grand Slam.

"They don't come along that often, and we should celebrate them properly when they do."

What happened to the class of '84?

PETER DODS

The Gala full-back toured with the 1989 Lions, and his international career continued until the 1991 Rugby World Cup. His younger brother Michael was also capped, and took the kicks for Scotland. Peter now runs a building firm in his home town.

JIM POLLOCK

Known as 'Lucky Jim', the winger made his debut in 1982 when Scotland won in Cardiff for the first time in 20 years. He is now a teacher at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, and remains actively involved with club rugby as the performance manager with Blaydon.

KEITH ROBERTSON

The Melrose back, who could play in the centre or on the wing, went on to work for his club in various coaching capacities, and became an outspoken critic of the SRU during the early years of professional rugby union. He runs his own car dealership in the Borders.

DAVID JOHNSTON

Forced to retire from playing early because of injury, the centre became a coach for a number of years. He formed a partnership with Richie Dixon which culminated in a spell as Scotland assistant coach. He works as a lawyer for Burness, the Edinburgh-based firm.

ROGER BAIRD

The Kelso winger won 27 caps for his country between 1981 and 1988, and also played for the 1983 Lions tourists. More recently he has coached at club level and has also been involved in age-group rugby as manager of the Scotland Under-21 side. He is a grain merchant.

JOHN RUTHERFORD

Like Johnston, the Selkirk stand-off also rose to become an assistant coach at national level after successful work with his club and with the South. A 1983 Lion, he last played for Scotland in the first Rugby World Cup. He went on to work in the financial sector.

ROY LAIDLAW

The scrum-half partnered Rutherford in 35 Tests, which was then a world record. He also toured with the Lions the year before Scotland's Grand Slam. He has recently returned to his original trade as an electrician, having spent more than a decade working for the SRU.

JIM AITKEN

The Scotland captain during that Grand Slam season, the Gala loosehead prop won the last of his 24 caps on the summer tour to Romania in 1984. A fierce critic of the SRU in recent years, he works in the grain business, and still runs a successful firm in East Lothian.

COLIN DEANS

The Hawick hooker was a Lion in 1983. He combined spells coaching Northampton with running his own plastics firm in Kettering. He also helps mentor Glasgow hooker Fergus Thomson through the SRU/Winning Scotland Foundation's 'Winning Mentors' programme.

IAIN MILNE

The cornerstone of the Scotland pack, nicknamed 'The Bear', Milne also toured with the Lions in 1983. He had little involvement in the game after retiring, working his way up in what is now a Europe-wide ink company. He enjoys fishing and does some after-dinner speaking.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

The Hawick lock forward, known as Sally, made his debut in the 1984 season and remained an international until 1988. He continues to work in the building trade, as he did during his playing days. Until recently he assisted with the coaching of his local youth club, Hawick PSA.

ALAN TOMES

A tourist with the 1980 Lions, the Hawick second row later returned to Gateshead, and played on well into his 40s. He hardly looks any different now, but has retired from working for the gas board and will meet up with former team-mates at Murrayfield today.

JIM CALDER

Another 1983 Lion, the back-row forward won his last Scotland cap the year after the Grand Slam. His twin brother Finlay played in the 1990 Grand Slam team, but the two never played together for their country. Jim now runs his own recruitment company.

IAIN PAXTON

Another who toured New Zealand with the 1983 Lions, Paxton blended coaching at club level with work in the insurance trade after retiring, before moving into professional coaching with Edinburgh. He is now a development officer at another former club, Selkirk.

DAVID LESLIE

One of Scotland's greatest forwards was heavily involved in coaching and managing Scotland at under-21 level and worked with his old Dundee HSFP club. Recently returned to work as an architect after a lengthy period recovering from a serious back injury.

JOHN BEATTIE

Another 1983 Lion, the renowned broadcaster, commentator and raconteur is involved in property, a travel business and coaching West of Scotland in Division One. His son Johnnie plays for Glasgow and Scotland and daughter Jenny plays professional football.

STEVE MUNRO

A winger with Ayr, and a worker in the financial sector, Steve Munro made his international debut in 1980 and won what turned out to be the last of his ten caps in the game. He lives in his native town and has little involvement with modern rugby.

GORDON HUNTER

One of three Selkirk players in the squad along with Rutherford and Paxton, the scrum-half was an able deputy for Laidlaw in Ireland. He runs a commercial property company in Ashkirk and, after coaching local youth teams, now serves on Selkirk's rugby board.

BILL CUTHBERTSON

Born in Kilwinning, the Harlequins lock did not make his Scotland debut until he was 30. Known for his singing and all-round entertaining within the 1984 Scotland squad, he is now based in London. His work includes corporate hospitality and after-dinner speaking.

EUAN KENNEDY

The Watsonians centre scored one of the tries in the Calcutta Cup match, the other going to his clubmate, David Johnston. He has remained involved in Scottish rugby at age-group level, and is currently manager of the Scotland Under-18 team. He works in council planning.