Best of the best

Published on Wednesday 29 January 2003 00:00

Number one: Gary Armstrong

Scrum-Half

"Unbelievable." Telfer uses the word three times in a matter of seconds while talking up the talents of his favourite rugby player, his first pick for his best XV, that team’s captain and the finest player he’s coached. He says a few more words, too. "Gary should have his own comic strip in the Victor or the Hotspur. He’s just an ordinary bloke, a lorry driver, and yet when he pulls on a rugby shirt, he becomes this sporting super-hero. He’s simply outstanding.

"If you want a moment, one that best sums him up, it might not be from a match. In 1999, out there," says Telfer, pointing to the training pitches behind Murrayfield, "he got injured just before the start of Five Nations. It was a bad one, he was squealing like a pig, and we thought his arm was broken. He missed the first game but dragged himself onto the park for the second. The will simply to get on the field is what sets him apart from the rest.

"I’m delighted he’s having a shot at the pro game. In the past, a lot of our guys used rugby to get themselves good jobs after they’d finished playing. But Gary had practically retired when his chance came."

Number two: David Leslie

Back Row

Telfer has described Leslie as "born lazy". He didn’t pick him for the Lions in 1983, choosing Jim Calder because he was more of a specialist flanker. Nevertheless he’s in no doubt that Leslie is the best forward he’s coached.

"He won us the Grand Slam in 1984. France played a shortened line-out and the ball was supposed to come all the way over and their scrum-half Jerome Gallion was to run onto it. David was in the stand-off position, to hit anyone who tried to come round the back. He took Gallion out, tackled him so hard that he had to be carried off. After that the French went to bits."

Telfer says he has not picked a team of "yes men", and would anticipate, and relish, the odd "difference of opinion" over formation and tactics. "I’d have lively discussions with Andy Irvine, Jim Renwick, Tom Smith, Alan Tait - also David. He and I have completely different backgrounds and political views. He’s public school and a Conservative. I’m state school and left wing. But if a guy’s honest, I respect his opinion."

Number three: Tom Smith

Prop

Maybe it’s the forward in Telfer that gives Smith the nod over Andy Irvine for third place. But he is unstinting in his praise of the prop, one of only two from the current generation to win a place among his all-time best.

"Tom’s the best rugby player in the current team," he says. "When you look at the role of the front-row forward now, we’ve come a long, long way from the dumpy, wee fat guy. Tom has taken the best elements of the play of the likes of Ian McLauchlan and David Sole and added something of his own. He’s dynamic, hard and very focused. If you’re looking to someone to whom you want to give a two-to-one pass, outside centre to winger, to win a match then he’s your man.

"During the Lions tour of South Africa in 1997, it surprised some people that we picked Tom ahead of England’s Jason Leonard. He’d only had one full season of international rugby before that. But we wanted a scrum that would get under the massive SA front row, to neutralise their weight. Tom was immense on that tour and now he’s one of the world’s best."

And three more

Telfer asked for his top three to be expanded to six to give due recognition to Andy Irvine, at No 4, Finlay Calder just behind him - and a player who cannot even get into his XV.

"Roy Laidlaw loses out to Gary Armstrong at scrum-half but is still one of the best half-dozen players I’ve had the pleasure to work with. He’s the epitome of what rugby is all about: honest, full of integrity, a great motivator and a guy who always gave 110 per cent."