Hastings and Brown urge squad to take confidence from rare win Down Under

Gavin Hastings and Peter Brown were busy this week extracting over £6,000 from the pockets of Edinburgh businessmen and women in the name of ‘Wooden Spoon’, a rugby charity supported by internationalists in events across the UK and Ireland to raise funds for disadvantaged children.

The ‘Spoon’ was awarded the IRB’s Spirit of Rugby Award last year and so far in 28 years has raised over £18m, with nearly £2.2m raised in Scotland and injected into a varied array of nearly 50 Scottish projects since 1998. Hastings took over as Honorary President in Scotland from Brown and both praised the current Scotland players for ending a 30-year wait for success in Australia at Thursday’s golf event, organised by Scottish Spoon chairman Charlie Bryden at the Royal Burgess Golf Society in Edinburgh and sponsored by engineering consultancy RYBKA.

Hastings told The Scotsman: “I feel we’ve done a great smash-and-grab in Australia and when you’re relegated to a warm-up act for Wales there’s only one thing you can do, and that is win the game. It is fantastic considering how long we have all waited to see it happen over there again. Test wins on tour are precious things.

“Many players have gone on tour there and come home with nothing – I experienced that feeling, and know how hard it was to win with the Lions there - so it should not be under-estimated. The most important thing was getting the victory and I just hope now that we can go on from that and win against Fiji and Samoa.

“I remember the last time we beat Australia, at Murrayfield, we then played Argentina in a half-empty stadium the next week, and lost. I thought that was so sad that the week after winning such a big Test match the Scottish rugby public did not get behind the Scotland team. They’re not at home now, but the players and coaches need to go one better than in 2009.

“They have done a lot of the hard work but they have to keep it going and if they can beat Fiji and Samoa they will be the only northern hemisphere side to come back from tour with three victories. That’s an absolute certainty.”

Brown, whose team, incidentally, pipped Hastings’ foursome for the golf trophy, never toured with Scotland during his nine-year Test career due to work commitments, but he has witnessed many a tour since and is similarly excited after Tuesday’s success in Australia.

“It was fantastic wasn’t it?” he said. “Beating Australia out there is a wonderful result and it was great to see the guys hold their nerve in horrendous weather, the pack to stick in and another wee Laidlaw [Greig] to show the benefit of goal-kicking practise under extreme pressure.

“It’s been hard for them this season because they have played some good rugby, but they have let themselves down at key moments. On Tuesday they held it together well to the last second and they have to now take confidence and believe in themselves and one another in what will be very different weather in Fiji and Samoa. We have exciting players coming through and, although it will be very tough, I’m optimistic about the next two games and next season.”

Though he never won a Test match on tour with Scotland, losing to the All Blacks in 1990 and Australia in 1992, Hastings led Scotland closest to a win in New Zealand in 1990, when four penalty goals in a row by Grant Fox hauled back an 18-9 Scottish lead in Eden Park and left the recently-crowned Grand Slam champions cursing a 21-18 loss. And having played on two Lions tours and in three World Cups, Hastings knows the value of a victory away from home, and one to end a losing sequence of results.

“I remember clearly how we went through the whole of 1994 losing,” he said. “We lost eight Test matches going back to the end of the 1993 championship, and drew one with Ireland. And then in January, 1995, we played Canada a fortnight before the start of the Five Nations. There was a lot of pressure on us, from ourselves, and we just had to win that game. It didn’t matter who the opposition was. We came out winners and took confidence from being able to win. We then beat Ireland, France and Wales and just missed out on another Grand Slam to England at Twickenham.

“The weather was poor in Newcastle on Thursday and the Australians were missing some guys, but that’s irrelevant to players, because that was all about winning a Test match, and proving they could get over the line again. No, as PC says, they have to take the confidence into the next game and win again.

“There is a long way to go and this team is far from being the team that they could, and some might argue should be, but that was a great victory and it can provide the catalyst you need for Test rugby.”

For more info on the Wooden Spoon, and to join, go to: www.woodenspoon.com/regions/scotland.php